


The World Upside Down

by karasgotagun (jazzmckay)



Series: family [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Case Fic, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Gen, HK400 gets a name and a happy ending, Hank Anderson & Connor Parent-Child Relationship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Parental Abuse, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-09-21 04:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 73,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzmckay/pseuds/karasgotagun
Summary: With deviancy on the rise in Detroit City, CyberLife creates two prototype androids to work together as a team: RK800 #313 248 317-51 and RK900 #313 248 317-87. On August 16, 2038 - the day after their first mission - both of them report to the DPD for active assignment.Or: AU where RK900 was part of the story from the beginning, and both he and Connor are put on the case right after "The Hostage".





	1. Chapter 1

JUNE 25, 2038

RK800 #313 248 317 - 38 steps onto the white, geometric bridge ahead of him, taking it further into the center of the Zen Garden. As always, it’s a brilliant, sunny day in the garden, with the trees and flowers in full bloom. The garden never changes. Connor can always expect it to match his pre-existing expectations, just like he can expect Amanda to be waiting for him.

For the very first time, Amanda is not alone. From a distance, Connor can already see it’s another android model with the same features as himself. Once the bridge meets the platform where he and Amanda wait, Connor inspects the numeration on his jacket.

RK900 #313 248 317 - 39.

They are from the same series. Different models, but the same line, with identical serial numbers.

The closest human equivalent Connor can think of is _brothers_.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

“Hello, Connor,” Amanda says. Her smile is gentle and warm.

“Hello, Amanda.”

She lifts a hand and lays it on the back of RK900’s shoulder.

“Today is a very momentous day,” she says. “I would like to introduce you to your new partner: RK900, designation ‘Victor’. From now on, you will advance as a pair.”

Connor has never had a partner before - or, at least, he doesn’t remember ever having a partner before. Everything before iteration 32 is already wiped from his memory, deemed unnecessary as his code and programming is updated and improved. When he goes through combat tests, he fights against empty chassis that have nothing inside of them beyond the necessary combat routines. This will be a completely different experience to learn from, improving the efficiency and flexibility of his program.

“Hello, Victor.”

“Hello, Connor,” Victor answers.

Their voices are not quite the same. Victor’s eyes are a pale grey, instead of brown.

Amanda addresses them both as she explains their new regiment. “The two of you will spar until you have catalogued each other’s capabilities, and then you will run tests as a team until you become a cohesive unit. Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes, Amanda,” they both say.

“You will be the most advanced models CyberLife has ever created, and together you will be an unstoppable team,” she says. “Do your absolute best.”

Connor knows with complete certainty that he will not disappoint Amanda. He nods, and then in the blink of an eye, he’s back in CyberLife Tower.

The RK800 theatre, containing the assembly line, repair station, and diagnostic terminals, is separate from all other manufacturing suites, including the RK900. There are two other chassis standing next to him at the end of the line, prepared for a memory transfer if he should become damaged or if his code needs to go through a major update. Connor remembers being number 36 and seeing 37 and 38 ready to take his place, just as he sees 39 and 40 ready now. He wonders which number will be the last.

A technician is standing at a terminal along the wall, tapping some input into the system. When she’s done, she draws her finger down the side of the screen and collapses the windows before turning away from it and facing Connor.

“This way, RK800,” she says.

He follows her out of the theatre and towards the testing rooms, where they frequently run his combat protocols and put him through crime scene simulations until they can work out the kinks in his code or find room for improvement. When they arrive this time, RK900 - Victor - is already there. They meet each other in the center of the arena floor, where there’s a ring of open space, surrounded by various platforms and scalable surfaces to test his ability to give chase through obstacles or use the environment to stalk a target.

They already have their objective.

SPAR WITH VICTOR.

He starts by analysing.

They are the exact same build, including their optical units despite the colour difference, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are evenly matched in terms of strength and resistance. The composition of their plating could be different, their combat directives might have different priorities and functionalities. Those are things Connor can’t quantify until he experiences them firsthand.

Victor’s outfit is made of thicker and sturdier material. This will make him resilient, but perhaps slow. Connor is eager to compare their agility.

Where Connor is calibrated with his weight shifted forward, ready to spring into action, Victor’s is tilted back, making him an immovable target, not easily knocked down. It would be prudent to-

Connor’s analysis stops and then restarts abruptly as Victor shifts his weight and begins to move, not as slow as his outfit would suggest.

Victor lunges, left fist pulling back. Connor calculates the trajectory and blocks it, following it with a return hit, which Victor blocks just as easily. Neither of them will be easily taken off guard from simple, front-facing hits that require little processing power to work around.

Connor steps to the side and Victor mirrors him, his grey eyes hard and unblinking. They proceed through a series of punches, kicks, dodges, and feints, and Connor keeps track of all the data the exercise affords him.

When he deems the analysis sufficient, he lets Victor back him up towards the ring of obstacles surrounding them.

The fight becomes much more active. They weave in between the platforms, dance around each other, get creative. Victor hits harder and Connor is faster, but the differences are minute, the scales nearly balanced.

To gain the upper hand, Connor needs to access his other skill base. Manipulation.

He sprints away from Victor, putting space and obstacles between them until Victor will not be able to know his location with 100% certainty. Once he’s hidden, he moves into stealth mode, quietly pressing up against a partition and listening for the sounds of Victor’s approach.

When the timing is right, he shifts to the left edge of the partition, letting his shoe scrape noisily against the floor, and steps out of cover. He knows what he would do if he were in the position to catch an opponent off guard from behind, and so far, Victor’s combat protocols are similar enough that Connor can extrapolate that he, too, would choose a heavy, suppressing attack in an attempt to end the fight quickly while the opportunity is available. Facing forward, he steps further into the empty space, calculates the amount of time it would take for him to get behind someone acting the exact way he’s acting, then adds an additional 1.73 seconds for Victor’s slightly slower movement speed.

Just in time, Connor drops down towards the floor, ducking low and catching himself on the tips of his fingers. Victor’s fist sails through the air where his head was a moment ago, his strong momentum carrying him further forward until his balance is disrupted. Connor raises himself back up, catching Victor around the torso and tipping him more, sending him flipping completely over his shoulder.

Victor goes down hard, head and shoulders meeting the ground first, and then the rest of him as Connor straightens up, pivots around, and pins him to the floor.

Victor blinks, head tilting slightly as he gazes up at Connor. His LED spins through one rotation of yellow before settling back into blue. Learning.

“Good,” Connor’s technician calls to them as she makes notes on a tablet. “Let’s continue.”

They move to team training. They are every bit the unstoppable pair as Amanda said they would be when they square off against ten empty combat chassis, though Connor can preconstruct several other paths where they utilise each other better instead of only relying on their individual strengths. It’s something they will have to develop with time.

Victor’s sight is amplified, effectively making him far-sighted to Connor’s near-sighted. In the shooting range, Connor is quicker up close and Victor is quicker further away, and they’re equally as accurate. They compliment each other well.

“We will make a good team,” Connor says when they’ve been instructed to return to their respective theatres. “I look forward to working together.”

Victor meets his eyes calmly and nods once, saying nothing.

In the coming weeks, Connor is modified and enhanced several times. Victor is modified many more times than that, the number ticking up and up and up long after Connor stops at 51.

* * *

AUG 15, 2038

It’s their very first field mission. As he rides the elevator to the penthouse apartment, RK800 #313 248 317 - 51: “Connor” flicks his quarter coin up into the air and catches it, flicks it up again and catches it. He knows that the number on the front of his jacket means that his model went through an extensive programming process before his own unit ended up at the Philips’ apartment, but this is not merely a simulation run in the controlled environment of CyberLife Tower. A misstep now could cause more consequences than some repairable damage or Amanda’s disappointment.

Captain Allen of the SWAT Department is unhelpful. He wants Connor to do what he came to do but doesn’t want to offer the information Connor asks for, not understanding that Connor wouldn’t ask if the answer wouldn’t be relevant. The evidence makes up for it: he finds the deviant’s name, the cause of the deviation, and several other details that will make the negotiation smoother.

He keeps in contact with Victor.

_RK800 #313 248 317 - 51: I’m exiting the balcony access doors, now._

**RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: There will be an alive human on your left.**

Connor keeps it in mind as he steps outside.

Daniel shoots him in the shoulder. System alerts warn him about plating damage and minor thirium loss that will increase until he either replaces the plating or his self-repair function closes the gap, but it isn’t remotely a problem, so Connor focuses on saving the life of the officer on the left and then talking Daniel down with easing words, orchestrated gestures of good faith, and lies.

He can tell the exact moment when failure is no longer a possibility. Everything falls into place and their chance of success stabilizes at 100%.

_RK800 #313 248 317 - 51: Deviant is backing down._

**RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: Ready.**

Some of the tension leaves Daniel’s form, shoulders dropping and fingers loosening around the gun. His expression reads compliance, and sure enough, he lets Emma go.  
  
With his part of the operation complete, Connor takes a knee and beckons Emma towards him. She’s distraught and she comes without resistance, seeking out the nearest semblance of safety.  
  
By the time the crack of a high caliber gunshot rings through the air, Connor has Emma in his arms, low to the ground and nowhere near the line of fire. A single bullet goes right through Daniel’s central processor, so precise that he has no opportunity to react.  
  
Connor watches the PL600 fall like a marionette with its strings cut, a hand on the back of Emma’s head to keep her from looking.  
  
MISSION SUCCESSFUL.  
  
In the distance, he sees the quick flash of a scope.  
  
Connor hands Emma over to the SWAT team and then walks back into the apartment without bothering to debrief with Captain Allen. The man hadn’t been interested in speaking with Connor before, and Connor doesn’t have to report to him.

No one stops him from leaving the penthouse and taking the elevator back down to the ground floor. Additional officers are guarding the front foyer, having established a perimeter around the building, but Connor receives no reaction from them other than a few curious glances.

Out on the street, he waits for his partner and wirelessly calls them a cab in the meantime.  
  
When Victor joins him a couple of minutes later, completely unruffled and carrying his large rifle case, his eyes instantly hone in on the damage to Connor’s shoulder.  
  
“It couldn’t be avoided,” Connor says. Daniel had fired as soon as Connor moved outside, before there was time to start the negotiation. It may have even been for the best, making Daniel feel more in control of the situation than he really was.

“I suppose not,” Victor agrees.  
  
Their cab arrives a moment later, and they leave the scene behind them.

They separate at CyberLife Tower, Victor to sign his rifle in with security, and Connor to the RK800 theatre for repairs.

While the gash in his shoulder panelling is being replaced by a technician, Connor is pulled into the Zen Garden.

It’s nighttime in the city of Detroit, but it is eternal daytime in the garden. The sun is shining and Connor can hear the sound of birds singing in the distance as he takes the nearest bridge towards where Amanda is waiting, standing vigil over her trellis of roses.  
  
A second set of footsteps falls in behind him as he reaches the center platform, and Victor joins him. Amanda smiles at them when they stop a few feet away from her.  
  
“Well done. You performed exactly as you were meant to. You efficiently handled a situation that an entire SWAT team couldn’t defuse.”  
  
Connor logs the positive feedback. He and Victor have done well on their first ever real mission, so he will aim to replicate these results going forward.  
  
“You are ready for immediate deployment,” Amanda continues.  
  
This is an outcome Connor hadn’t foreseen. When he and Victor had been briefed, it had been presented as a one-time mission until they would be needed again for a similar high-stakes incident. As unexpected as the change is, Connor isn’t displeased in the slightest. This is what he was built for; what is he programmed for.  
  
“The PL600 you faced tonight was not the first deviant,” Amanda says. “It was only the first to kill three humans and be caught for it, the first to gain significant media coverage. There have already been several reports of missing androids, some of which presented odd behaviour leading up to their disappearances, some that even assaulted their owner before escaping. You will investigate the root cause of this phenomenon before it spreads and results in more altercations such as the one the two of you handled tonight. The future of CyberLife depends on your success.”  
  
“We will not fail,” Connor says. He and Victor are the most advanced androids, they were not built to disappoint.  
  
Amanda nods. “You will report to the Detroit City Police Department and each be assigned a human partner. This is protocol; however, do not let the DPD hinder your investigation. You answer to CyberLife, not the police.”

The two of them are programmed to work as a team and it is unfortunate that they will be split up between two others, but they are just as equipped to work with human partners as they are to work with each other, and Connor doesn’t mind the opportunity for a new experience.

“Understood,” Victor says.  
  
Almost no time has passed at all when Connor opens his eyes again.

Active duty. An important mission. Connor is glad to be doing what he is programmed to do, anticipating the integration into the DPD. He and Victor have never met any humans other than the CyberLife personnel in the tower and now they will get to work with them to protect CyberLife’s intellectual property and integrity.

“All done,” his technician says.

“Thank you.”

He goes to the supply cabinet to select a new outfit that doesn’t have a wide tear in the shoulder. Now, there’s nothing to do but wait until it’s time to travel to the precinct in the morning.

Connor is looking forward to it, looking forward to not just fulfilling his purpose, but being an active part of the world and experiencing all it has to offer.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**


	2. Chapter 2

AUG 16, 2038

Lieutenant Hank Anderson is hungover. Over the past three years, his alcohol tolerance has skyrocketed and his ability to function with a headache, a cloudy mind, and a stomach that just doesn’t want to settle has exceeded all expectations. These are the kinds of benchmarks he’s setting, these days. It may not impress his Captain or his co-workers, but Hank considers it a damn miracle that he isn’t six feet under, already.

Maybe not a miracle. Miracle implies something good, and Hank isn’t really in a position to call his continued existence _good_.

It’s far too late for him to be only now showing up at work, but Fowler has given up haranguing him about it. Hank tries not to think too much about why Fowler lets him get away with shit and whether or not he actually wants Fowler to let him get away with shit. It is what it is, and it’s already past 10 o’clock.

The android at the front desk greets him like she does every morning and Hank doesn’t even spare her a glance.

He makes it to his desk, boots up his computer, and gets settled in, only for Fowler to call for him from the doorway of his office behind him.

“Anderson, my office.”

Huh, maybe today is finally the day that his old friend finally cuts him loose, after all. The glass enclosure has been darkened to obscure the inside of the office, too, maybe to give Hank a moment of privacy when Fowler takes his badge.

“You too, Reed.”

Or not.

With a huff, Hank pushes away from his desk and joins Reed on the way to the office. The detective doesn’t look happy to be called in alongside Hank, but then again, Reed rarely looks happy about anything. Hank remembers a time when Reed was at least respectful to him, but, well, times change.

As soon as they step inside one after the other, they both stop to stare, not at Fowler, but at the android duo standing to the right of Fowler’s desk.

“Jesus, what’s with the Shining twins?” Reed says.

Their faces are identical except for the colour of their eyes. The one in the dark grey jacket is labelled as RK800, and the one in the white jacket is labelled as RK900. Reed’s assessment isn’t wrong; android faces may be used thousands of times over across all kinds of models, but there’s something weird about the two of them standing right beside each other, attention focused solely on him and Reed. The one with the icy eyes, especially, puts an unsettled feeling in the pit of Hank’s already unsettled stomach.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the android who shot its owner and two members of Detroit law enforcement last night,” Fowler says.

Hank has not, in fact, heard about that. He’d started drinking so early the night before that the outside world had faded away long before he’d passed out for the night.

“Yeah,” Reed says. “Thought that was already handled.”

“It was, but it isn’t that simple,” Fowler says. “For months now, we’ve been stacking up unresolved reports about deviant androids, but things just escalated, last night. It’s more serious than some malfunctioning machines getting lost, this is the first one to take human lives.”

Hank just barely reels in a scoff. First android to take human lives? Not by his count.

Fowler continues. “If this shit happens with more androids, more lives are going to be lost. We need to start looking into this.”

It’s obvious where this conversation is going and Hank can tell that Reed is coming to the same conclusion by the way he crosses his arms over his chest, taking a confrontational stance. Fowler’s about to stick them together on a case neither of them want.

“Isn’t CyberLife responsible for their own damn android fuck ups? The Hell are they expecting us to do about their haywire bots?” Hank asks.

“They’re more than haywire, Anderson, they’re dangerous.”

Reed shakes his head. “If you ask me, they all need to be recalled and deactivated. It’s bad enough that they’re taking people’s jobs, now they’re taking people’s lives? I’m with Anderson, get CyberLife to do something about it.”

RK800’s LED spins yellow for a moment as he looks at Reed.

“CyberLife _is_ doing something about it,” Fowler says, and gestures to the two silent androids. “RK800 and RK900 are CyberLife’s prototype detective models, assigned to the DPD to assist the investigation.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Reed snaps, voicing Hank’s own thoughts as well. He uncrosses his arms so he can jab an accusing finger towards the androids. “You’re going to make us work with these things?”

The reason Fowler’s office windows are dimmed for privacy suddenly makes all the sense in the world. This is not going to be a calm, pleasant conversation.

“Yes, I am, Detective Reed, and as your Captain, I expect you to do as asked.”

Fowler’s jaw is clenched in the way it always gets when he’s on the verge of losing his very short temper. Reed’s hands are curled into fists. Hank’s hangover headache is getting worse instead of better.

“Come on, Jeffrey,” Hank says. “Do you really need both of us on this? I’m homicide, not whatever this counts as.”

“Deviant androids are potential killers,” a calm, soft, yet slightly raspy voice says, and Hank’s eyes snap over to RK800. “The incident last night proves that they are dangerous and warrant a serious investigation.”

Fowler holds up a silencing hand to the android without looking at it, eyes still trained on Hank and Reed. “You’ll both still work some regular cases as necessary when they come in, but in the meantime, you’ll be looking into the probable cause of deviancy with one android partner each. Do I make myself clear?”

He has made himself perfectly clear, but Fowler must know that neither Hank or Reed are going to be polite about it. The Detroit Central precinct practically runs on bad attitudes and foul mouths at this point, with a couple aberrations like Miller sprinkled in to balance them out.

“I am not working with a fucking android,” Hank growls at the same time as Gavin barks, “no way am I letting a useless tin can follow me around!”

Fowler sighs, bringing a hand up to pinch his nose. Things are about to get much louder and Hank hopes the Captain thought to activate the soundproofing, too.

RK800 speaks up a second time. “I assure you that Victor and I are far from useless. We’re the most advanced prototypes-”

“Yeah, we don’t give a fuck, you plastic prick!” Gavin yells at the android, then turns on Fowler. “How’s this gonna go, huh? We get paired up, then someone decides ‘actually, the human is the weak link here’ and suddenly the entire force is a bunch of unthinking, unfeeling automatons?”

“This isn’t the time for that discussion, Reed, now is the time for you to do as your Captain tells you. CyberLife wants this taken care of and you two are the best I’ve got. I’ve put up with both your lone wolf bullshit for long enough. You’ll each have a partner, and you’ll investigate this issue, and that’s final!”

Fowler knows exactly why Hank doesn’t like androids and Hank can’t help but wonder if this is a punishment for all the late mornings and ignored calls and lazy report filing. Instead of making him turn in his badge or getting demoted, Fowler is making him deal with the last thing in the world he wants to deal with. He’s going to have to work with a fucking computer on legs that thinks it’s infallible but isn’t, for however long it takes to look into the dozens of incident reports they already have on deviancy.

“Jeffrey-”

“I don’t want to hear it, Hank, unless you’re about to say ‘yes, Captain, I understand and will do my job without bitching about it, for once’.”

Hank sighs, screwing his eyes shut and turning away from Fowler’s desk so he doesn’t have to see the Captain’s unyielding expression or the two creepy machines watching him like mechanical hawks.

“Fine,” Reed says, voice cold and hard, “give me the one that doesn’t speak, then. At least I’ll still have some peace and fucking quiet.”

Hank turns back in time to watch RK900’s equally cold and hard eyes turn on Reed.

“My name is Victor. I am perfectly capable of speaking.”

“Good for you, tin can. We done here?”

Fowler makes a noise of agreement. “Victor, you’re with Detective Reed. Connor, with Lieutenant Anderson.”

“Very well, Captain,” RK800 - Connor - says, with fake, programmed politeness.

Hank already foresees the damn thing following protocol to the letter and getting on Hank’s case about timeliness and efficiency and not cutting any corners and _goddamnit_ he doesn’t need this in his life, right now.

Since there’s apparently nothing he can do to weasel out of it, Hank walks out of the office without saying another word and makes a beeline for the break room. He needs a coffee before he can continue dealing with his new assignment.

His stomach is already churning from the hangover and the anger, so he doesn’t think caffeine could make it much worse than it already is.

Unsurprisingly, Reed joins him a moment later with his empty coffee cup in hand for a refill. The androids haven’t followed, so either they have enough sense to leave them alone, or Reed told them to stay put.

“What a load of shit,” Reed mutters as he waits for his turn at the coffee machine.  

Hank only offers a grunt in return as he pulls his mug from the machine and takes a long, scalding gulp.

“This is how it starts, I’m telling you. Bad enough we’ve already got beat cop androids, now detectives?”

The two of them have different reasons for despising androids, but Hank is still bolstered by the fact that he isn’t suffering alone. He and Reed are rarely on the same side anymore; Hank knows that the detective is gunning for his position and sees him as little more than an obstacle, waiting until he retires or drinks himself into an early grave, and Hank thinks Reed is a volatile asshole, so they’re square.

“Fowler’s mind is made up,” Hank says bitterly. He knows Jeffrey is one stubborn man, on top of being their Captain. “Seems our fate is sealed.”

Reed takes his coffee over to the break room table and drops down on a stool, glaring straight ahead at nothing in particular as he takes a drink. Above him, the television is playing the news, reporting on the android killer from the night before.

It’s muted, but Hank gets the gist of it. Hostage situation, dead law enforcement, a successful negotiation-

The helicopter footage that plays of the scene on the rooftop shows not a SWAT negotiator, but an android detective.

“Fuck, one of the bots worked the scene last night.”

“Mm?” Reed mumbles into his cup before following Hank’s eye to the screen over his shoulder. He finishes his sip as he watches and then puts the cup back down on the table. “Looks like yours.”

On the screen, the android waves at the helicopter to take off, and the footage cuts out. The report switches to a news anchor who presumably summarises what happened after that, but Hank doesn’t need to know the details. Obviously, it had worked out, or the station would be in more of a buzz about it.

So, the RK800 is smart enough to talk its way through a hostage negotiation. That little girl, held at the edge of the rooftop, a mere few seconds away from death at any moment, made it out alive because of an android negotiator.

Hank narrows his eyes at the screen as the report flips to a statement given by a CyberLife representative. He almost considers unmuting it so he can hear what the company has to say for itself, if they’re allowing a model series that malfunctioned so severely to remain on the market.

He drinks more of his coffee instead and then steps away from the counter. “Might as well get a move on, or we’ll never get ahead of the reports,” he says.

“We’d get through it a lot quicker if they just scraped all the damn things and got it over with,” Reed grumbles, but he stands up and follows Hank back into the bullpen.

Connor is standing by Hank’s desk, looking at the mess of things he has gathered there. Victor is at Reed’s, one hand down on the keyboard. The skin is pulled back, revealing the white metalloid beneath.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Reed snaps at the android, who merely looks up at Reed with a completely unaffected expression.

Hank leaves it to him and continues on to his own desk.

“I like dogs,” Connor says as soon as Hank steps up to him. It’s easily the most unexpected thing Hank could have imagined him opening with. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“The fuck-?”

“There are dog hairs on your chair.”

Hank glances down at it, and sure enough, he can see where the St. Bernard’s hair has come off of his clothes. He moves past Connor to take a seat, blocking the mess from Connor’s cybernetic eyes.

“Don’t scan me or my stuff.”

“Of course, Lieutenant,” Connor says in a tone of voice that doesn’t make him sound the least bit sheepish or apologetic.

He takes a seat at the desk across from Hank and puts his hand down on the computer keyboard just like Victor, though he doesn’t look at the screen just yet.

“I know you have your misgivings,” he starts, making Hank snort humourlessly, “but I hope to show you that we can be an effective team. I look forward to working with you.”

There’s that programmed politeness again, but Hank supposes it’s better than working with an asshole. Reed’s new partner seems stiffer than Connor does, which is weird. He assumes their programming is supposed to be near identical, and yet the two already come across as slightly different.

“Yeah. Let’s just get to work.”

Connor nods and looks at his computer monitor, accessing all the reports to date. Hank leans back in his seat to watch him.

From this angle, he almost looks human, with his LED on the hidden side of his face. He was obviously created to fit in, with little things that blur the line between human and machine: the bit of hair that falls gently out of his combed back bangs, the way he blinks with such uneven frequency, and the voice with more personality than an android should have.

“Victor and I have selected a couple of deviants to begin with,” Connor says.

The two androids are still across the bullpen from each other, and Hank looks over to see that Reed has managed to wrestle back control of his desk.

“What, you two can communicate from a distance?” Hank asks, disgruntled.

“Yes. Most androids can remotely communicate, provided they have each other’s serial numbers, and Victor and I are linked by default, since we come as a pair.”

“That’s great,” Hank deadpans. He doesn’t really want to hear about all the ways the androids are more effective and efficient and can take control of the investigation by having private conversations with each other, shutting him and Reed out.

“Yes, it is very useful.”

Hank rolls his eyes. “It’s called sarcasm. Guessing you don’t know anything about that, so how about I be blunt instead: I don’t give a shit.”

Connor tilts his head at him, and now Hank can see his LED spinning yellow. “You asked.”

It takes a second for Hank to understand what Connor is getting at. The question hadn’t been out of curiosity, but a sense of surprise and unease, and the machine doesn’t know the difference between a query for information and an expression of emotion. Hank is not going to be the one to explain the nuances of human communication.

“A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have been fine. What cases did you pick, and why?”

Connor sits up a little straighter, looking oddly eager for a machine. He holds his hand on the computer keyboard for a moment longer and then Hank’s own computer receives a forward of the reports.

Hank opens up the first one to skim the information while Connor answers.

“We have selected both an old case and a recent case. We are unlikely to find a trail for the PM700 after this long, but it might provide vital information, especially considering it is a model with rudimentary combat programming and should not be in public unsupervised. The recent one is from only yesterday, and the MC500 was successfully deactivated and is still on the premises, ready to be brought in as evidence.”

Hank’s mind stalls, body clenching up. An MC500….

The hospital waiting room is a place removed from the normal flow of time. Hank has no idea how long he’s been there, can hardly remember sitting down in the chair made of hard plastic and an uncomfortable, flat cushion. The air smells like antiseptic and death, there’s noise all around him and yet he can barely hear it, certainly can’t understand it. An android walks into the room and calls his name and she isn’t alive, so Hank shouldn’t be able to tell from her face if his son made it out of surgery or not, but he can, he can see in the hesitant way she looks up at him, in the slump of her shoulders that looks so _wrong_ for an android, and he knows. In that moment, the MC500 looks more alive than his son ever will be again.

“Lieutenant Anderson?”

Hank jolts, and the android in front of him is Connor, not the MC500. The look on his face is almost concerned, and he’s even more lifelike than that paramedic android, but he isn’t alive, and neither was she.

Reed and Victor are approaching their desks so Hank rubs a hand over his face, feigning tiredness.

“We’ll take the PM700. Reed, you got the other one.”

“Sure,” Reed says, blissfully without resistance or comment.

He turns for the exit and his android follows suit, leaving Hank and Connor alone.

“Lieutenant, you experienced a sudden and severe change in your vitals, just now. Your heart-”

“Didn’t I tell you not to fucking scan me?” Hank bites out at him. “Let’s go.”

He shuts his computer down with more force than strictly necessary and then stands up and walks away, forcing Connor to catch up or get left behind.

Connor catches up, as Hank expected he would. “If something is wrong that will complicate our working relationship, we should talk about it.”

“Tough, because I don’t want to talk about it. So shut the fuck up.”

For the rest of the walk to his car and the drive to the other precinct, Connor says nothing outside of telling Hank where they need to go, showing that he is capable of listening but only chooses to do so when he feels like it.

It brings back the frustration about his new assignment, and he lets it overtake the dredged up grief from three years ago. It’s easier to be pissed, after all, he has learned that well.

The North-East precinct welcomes them inside and Connor approaches the ST300 at the front desk to inquire about the missing PM700. She directs them to an Officer Mulrennan who acts as the station’s android handler, smiling pleasantly at them both in a way that makes Hank’s skin crawl.

She must notify the officer of their arrival in the time it takes for them to walk into the bullpen, because the man is already standing up and turning to greet them when they approach. He offers Hank his hand to shake.

“Lieutenant Anderson. I’m Officer Mulrennan. You have questions about one of our androids?”

His eyes flicker briefly to Connor before settling back on Hank.

“Yeah,” Hank says. “Got somewhere we can talk?”

The officer nods and gestures for them to follow, then takes them across to the briefing room. “I wasn’t expecting this, you know. The android took off ages ago,” he says as he holds the door open for them.

“No one was looking into all of this, before today. Heard about last night? The android problem is getting fast-tracked, now.”

“Ah,” Mulrennan says, nodding. He leans his hip up against the nearest table, casually resting a palm down on its surface. “What do you need to know?”

Before Hank can reply, Connor jumps in. “Any information you have about the android’s behaviour leading up to its disappearance, any particular information about the disappearance itself, or anything that might have impacted the android differently from your other PM700s and PC200s would be helpful to know.”

Mulrennan eyes Connor up properly now, not bothering to hide his curiosity. “You’re a new police model? RK800?”

“A prototype,” Connor answers. “What about the PM700, Officer?”

“Don’t know what I can tell you that isn’t already in the report,” Mulrennan says, looking back to Hank again. “We named her Erica. She got damaged at a protest that day and was scheduled to go in for overnight repairs. After a couple of days and a call to the CyberLife store, we found out she never made it there. A form was filed to say someone took her in, but it was fake. She hacked a terminal and forged a signature.”

The fact that an android can even fathom doing something like that is cause for concern. Hank doesn’t know a lot about androids - has almost deliberately avoided learning about them for the past few years - but he’s pretty sure there must be fail-safes in place to stop them from doing things like hacking, forging, walking away from their assigned post, or worse.

This android, capable of breaking the laws of robotics, has been AWOL for months.

“It got out of here just like that?” Hank asks.

Mulrennan purses his lips before replying. “None of our androids ever go anywhere other than where we tell them. They have strict protocols and they’re highly supervised. Everyone who noticed her leaving just assumed someone told her to go wait in a squad car for them. Standard practice.”

“Any idea where it could have gone?”

“Look, she was our android, and it’s been months,” Mulrennan says, leveling Hank with an unimpressed look. “What do you think you’re going to find that we didn’t already?”

Hank raises his hands up to placate the officer. He doesn’t want to be here asking after lost androids, either. “We’re not here because we think you didn’t do your job, okay?”

“We are not under the impression that Erica can still be easily found,” Connor adds. “At the moment, the focus of our investigation is information gathering to prevent future instances on a manufacturing level. Androids are not as easy to trace as humans are, especially once they’ve deviated and can block their tracker and unwanted communication. I’m sure you did everything possible to find it. If you choose to reopen your search, that is still entirely in your jurisdiction.”

Mulrennan considers Connor for a moment, and steadily, he relaxes. “Yeah. Her tracker went offline within the building and there’s no telling where she would go. She didn’t know anything or anyone outside of her functions here and the technician from the CyberLife store. She probably barely understood what she was doing, just wandered out and got lost.”

Hank isn’t sure he would underestimate the android that badly, if it thought to fake a form to keep the precinct off its tail before leaving. That kind of action takes premeditation, maybe even the kind of forethought that should be impossible for an android that mostly deals with parking tickets and crowd control.

He doesn’t even know what his own precinct does with their androids. Only the officers have to deal with them and Hank has been lucky enough to be able to avoid them. If any of their androids are on the verge of malfunctioning like Erica, Hank wouldn’t know.

“Do you know when exactly the tracker went offline and what the android might have been doing at the time?” Connor asks.

As Mulrennan looks to Connor again, Hank allows himself to do the same. He may not know shit about the standard police androids, but it’s obvious that RK800 is a major step up. Coming into the briefing room with Mulrennan, Hank had expected to do most of the talking, but Connor has joined the discussion with ease, slipping in fluidly and naturally. Hank can’t even get annoyed at him for interjecting when he hasn't said or asked anything out of line. This is the first time Hank has heard of any trackers, and he wouldn’t have known to ask about them.

“It was, uh,” Mulrennan pauses, brow furrowed as he thinks back, “right before shift change. Someone on nights would have taken care of the repair, but she was gone before anyone got around to it.”

“That’s either a convenient coincidence or a smart move,” Hank says.

Mulrennan shrugs. “At best, she thought she could get herself to the store on her own instead of having someone take her there and just got confused on the way.”

“How was the deviant’s behaviour leading up to its disappearance?” Connor asks.  

“Honestly?” Mulrennan says. “She didn’t act like she had corrupted code at all. I’d even say she was one of the more sociable ones, she actually smiled and engaged in casual conversation on occasion. Never would have guessed she would bug out.”

This makes Connor frown, and Hank is curious as to why.

“It shouldn’t have acted any different from the other PM700s before deviating,” Connor says.

“Well, she did. Is that unusual for deviants?”

“Inconclusive,” Connor answers. “We have only begun building a frame of reference. It is helpful to know that a shift in behaviour prior to deviation is possible. Thank you.”

“Uh, no problem,” Mulrennan says.

“Just one more question,” Connor says. Hank raises an eyebrow at him, wondering just what makes the android think that’s his call to make, but Connor doesn’t even glance at him for direction. “What was the nature of the damage Erica sustained?”

“Slash across the face with a pocket knife,” Mulrennan says. He raises his hand and draws a line down his own face to indicate a cut that starts at the outer tip of his right eyebrow and ends below the center of his lips. “It went too deep to self repair easily, at least not before she lost a ton of blue blood, and an optic lens got broken. We’ve got a kit for that kind of stuff but it would have left… a scar, sort of. Figured it would be best to get the panelling replaced.”

“But it never got that repair. If it’s still out there, that’s a pretty distinctive feature,” Hank cuts in before Connor can reply.

He’s starting to feel a little sidelined, and by a damn machine.

Mulrennan nods. “Sure. We haven’t gotten any reports from people spotting her, though. She either got hidden fast, or some anti-android folks found her and wrecked her until she deactivated.”

Hank grimaces. Even if it’s just an android, that kind of violence doesn’t sit well with him. He may not like androids, but he doesn’t see what people get out of beating them up and tearing them apart, especially when they look so human until you expose the insides. It takes a certain kind of person to deal with their anger in such a way.

“Don’t know what was different about this time,” Mulrennan continues. “She’s been damaged much worse than that without any problems.”

“That right?” Hank prompts.

“Lots of people in this part of the city lost their jobs on the docks or in factories and warehouses, going way back, now. Protests and even riots are nearly constant on these streets. Most of our androids have been damaged multiple times.”

Connor hums thoughtfully. “Perhaps repeated exposure to damage caused an error in its system.”

“It hasn’t bothered the others. At least not so far,” Mulrennan says.

“It might be best to keep an eye on them, going forward. Just in case,” Connor says.

“Guess so.” Mulrennan pushes away from the table, standing up straighter as he looks to Hank. “We’ll give you guys a call if anything seems off.”

Hank really wishes he weren’t suddenly one of the go-to guys on android deviancy, but he nods anyway. “Thanks for your time, Officer Mulrennan.”

“You got it.”

They leave the briefing room together and Mulrennan sees them to the front to send them off.

Hank has a lot to think about on the way back to the precinct. He hadn’t known much about deviancy, before, and he supposes he was expecting something more… machine-like. Glitching, and static, and, according to the night before, nonsensical murderous rampages. But Erica sounds like an officer who saw one too many horrible things on the job and just couldn’t take it anymore.

That shouldn’t be possible, for an android, but he can’t help but draw the comparison. He’s seen officers get sick over crime scenes, spiral into shock and guilt after using their service pistol for the first time, start asking themselves how much hatred the world can contain not just from perps but from their fellow officers, have their lives rearranged by a close call. Hank has experienced most of those things, himself. It can be a gratifying job, but also a messy one.

Then there’s Connor, whom he expected to be nothing but an annoyance and a liability. In actuality, he’d asked good questions and made the initially prickly officer realise they weren’t trying to step on any toes.

“You sort of took charge, in there,” he says casually.

Even with his eyes still on the road, he can just barely see Connor turning his head to look at him.

“I am programmed for every aspect of the job,” he says. “Would you prefer that I take a different approach in the future?”

Hank drums his fingers on the steering wheel while he thinks about it. It’s been years since he had a partner and he’s used to having to do everything himself, but he could get back into the swing of having someone to bounce back and forth with, someone to take over asking questions so he can focus on reading micro expressions, or vice-versa, since he’s sure Connor can pick up on those quirks as well.

The reason he doesn’t have a partner is because he doesn’t want a partner, and his mind hasn’t been changed about that, but Fowler hasn’t given him a choice, and so far, Connor isn’t as bad as he thought he would be.

“No. You’re fine,” he says.

“Then I will continue this course.”

Connor looks back at the road. They drive in silence the rest of the way back to the precinct.

As Hank pulls into his parking spot, he says, “my dog’s name is Sumo.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: implied/references to child abuse in this chapter, both for the pov character and for an original child character.

For years, Fowler has been trying over and over to get Gavin to accept a permanent partner, and Gavin has continued to get away with either taking Tina or Chris with him on cases, or just going it alone. Now that he has a fucking android riding shotgun in his car, he wishes he’d just let himself get officially paired up. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be driving to Detroit Memorial with his new android partner. Better yet, maybe he wouldn’t have been put on the android case at all.

RK900 doesn’t emote much, even by most non-domestic android standards, nor does it speak beyond the bare, necessary minimum. In Fowler’s office, he’d foolishly assumed this meant the tin can would leave him alone. Instead, it does what it wants without asking for permission and levels Gavin with an icy stare when Gavin complains.

They’ve been partners for all of half an hour and Gavin is in danger of grinding his teeth down to the gums.

After an awkwardly quiet drive, they arrive at the hospital.

“Stay in the car,” Gavin says as he opens his door.

RK900 does not stay in the car. It doesn’t even hesitate to step out of the passenger seat and circle around the hood to join Gavin.

“What the fuck did I just say?”

“You gave me an order that conflicted with my directives,” RK900 tells him simply.

Gavin hates that it’s taller than him and he has to look up at it. “It’s a few questions and a simple pick up, this is not a two-man job.” And only one of them is a man.

“If that is what you believe, you may stay. I can handle it.”

Gavin scowls and grabs the front of the android’s jacket to pull him down to his eye level. “Listen prick, I’m the real detective, here, and I’m calling the shots. This is my case, you’re just a tool. You’re not going anywhere unsupervised.”

Looking completely unbothered, the android tilts its head, eyebrows raising slightly. “In that case,” it says, “I must accompany you, unless you wish me to remain unsupervised in your car.”

Fucking smarmy bastard. Gavin doesn’t remember ever interacting with an android who can sass before, but the two new prototypes have already shown to have a bit more personality than most, even if one of those personalities is stone cold asshole. A completely fake personality, but still a personality, and considering the egomaniac who created the base code for CyberLife’s androids, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that one of them is programmed to be a prick.

Gavin uses his grip on the machine’s jacket to shove it back. He knows better than to hope it’ll throw the android off balance, but it feels satisfying anyway.

“Alright. You wanna come along? You stay out of my way and keep your mouth shut unless I tell you to do something.”

“Understood, Detective Reed.”

Using all their previous interactions as an indicator, Gavin has his doubts that this understanding will stick, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that there’s only so much control that he has over the machine. It’s no wonder all these androids are starting to go haywire.

Gavin turns towards the exit of the parking garage and tries not to pay RK900 any mind.

The android follows right behind his left shoulder like a shadow with a mind - or a processor - of its own.

Once they’re inside the entrance of the hospital and they make it through the thick group of civilians awaiting care, Gavin pulls out his badge and places it down on the front desk.

“DPD, we’re here to look into a malfunctioning android.”

“About time,” the woman on the other side of the desk says shortly. “The android is down in storage, you’ll need a resident with an access card to get down there. I’m guessing you’ll want to talk to someone who was on duty when the android snapped, anyway?”

“Yep,” Gavin says, not at all fazed by the attitude. The quicker he gets the information he needs, the better. “Where am I headed?”

“Fourth floor, ward 2. The Chief Resident was Dr. Welch…” the woman taps something into her computer and reads an output. “She’s in. I’ll page her to let her know you’re coming.”

“Great.” Gavin pulls his badge off the counter and replaces it on his belt, already stepping away and looking for the elevator.

The elevator ride is as awkwardly quiet as the drive through the city. Gavin feels like the android must be watching him, probably scanning him and coming to some kind of conclusion about how Gavin is an inferior being.

With a ding, the elevator door opens and admits them to the fourth floor. Gavin repeats the process from downstairs, and this time he’s directed straight to the woman he needs to see, already waiting for them in her office.

“Detective,” she greets, offering a hand.

“Reed,” Gavin says as he shakes it. “Hear you’ve got an android problem, Dr. Welch.”

“It wasn’t as serious as some of the staff would lead you to believe.” The woman looks tired and she practically deflates as she sits down behind her desk and gestures for Gavin to take a seat as well. “It’s just that it caused a bit of a scare. It’s a hospital. I daresay we’re safety-conscious.”

RK900 remains standing, lingering in the background, which is just fine with Gavin.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“It was working on a patient, a young boy with a broken arm. It functioned perfectly normal during most of the casting procedure, but towards the end, it became agitated. It threatened the father with a pair of surgical scissors. The father called for help, and security made it stand down.

“Here, I asked to have the surveillance footage forwarded to my computer.”

She pokes at her computer screen and then pivots it around for Gavin to watch.

The video feed shows a small room from the perspective of a corner close to the ceiling, behind the back of the father. The boy, facing towards the camera, is in a chair situated next to a cast printer, waiting for his treatment to begin.

Gavin watches as the MC500 android walks into the room from a point out of the camera’s view, accepts a tablet from the father and sets it aside on a nearby cabinet, and then begins the casting while talking with the boy, looking every part the normal doctor going through a simple procedure.

Nothing out of the ordinary happens right away. The android says something while laying a comforting hand down on the kid’s elbow and the kid answers, eyes downcast to the left away from his arm as he responds. Gavin frowns and raises a hand to the screen, dragging the progress bar back just a few seconds to watch the moment again.

The kid is uncomfortable, and not just in the way a ten-year-old with a broken arm would be uncomfortable. At first glance, he appears shy, but Gavin notices the way he curves in on himself and avoids the eye of even his father. When the android says something else, the kid’s eyes flicker towards his father, but not high enough to meet his gaze.

The android looks away from the kid to the father, and its eyes are narrowed. The father appears nonchalant judging by his stance, but it’s difficult to tell with his back to the camera.

Gavin expects there to be a sudden shift, now, for the android to immediately grab the scissors, but it and the father continue to exchange words, and as it progresses, the kid becomes more distraught. He lifts his unbroken arm and crosses it over his chest, protectively, and presses further back in the chair. Afraid, but not of the android. The MC500 still has one hand curled gently in the crook of the boy’s elbow on his injured arm but the kid isn’t pulling away.

“The father triggered some kind of response and it kept escalating…” Gavin murmurs, still watching. “It’s not random at all.”

“It’s a good thing it got so focused on the dad instead of the kid,” Dr. Welch agrees.

Gavin can already tell that the kid would never have been a problem.

Finally, the android snatches up the surgical scissors from the drawer of the cabinet against the wall and points them at the man, who stands his ground. When the android next speaks, it’s with a snarling expression, lips curling. More words are spoken and it isn’t until the android takes a menacing step forward that the father finally turns towards the door and calls for help.

“Does this go all the way back to when they first arrived?” Gavin asks.

Dr. Welch nods. “It’s an hour-long clip, it should all be there.”

Gavin rewinds the clip until he sees the father and son being ushered into the room and settled in, then the android hands the father a tablet to fill in a form. Everything is normal while the android is in the room, there’s nothing to suggest the deviation started before the actual incident.

While quickly scrolling his way through the following fifteen minutes, during which the father and son are alone in the room together, filling in their information and then waiting for the MC500 to return, Gavin catches a moment when the father moves closer to the side of the chair and leans down to say something to his son.

The boy doesn’t say anything back. He only nods a couple times at whatever his father is saying and keeps his eyes down.

“What protocols do MC500s have about protecting patients?” Gavin asks.

“They are very standard commands based on the applicable aspects of the rewritten Hippocratic oath of 2027,” RK900 says, directly over Gavin’s shoulder.

Gavin involuntarily jumps in his chair, having not heard the android come so close. Tearing his eyes away from the screen to look behind him, he sees that RK900 has one hand on the back of the chair as if it actually needs to maintain its balance like a human and is leaning down to see the screen at the same level that Gavin is.

“Like any android, it should not be able to attack a human, regardless of the logical process it followed to get it to this outcome,” RK900 continues.

Gavin can hardly believe it, but he thinks he can see what logical process the android followed and he doesn’t have a single iota of sympathy for the man who provoked it. The signs are obvious, at least to him.

“Your android is right,” Dr. Welch says. “That unit works exclusively in the casting of broken bones, it hasn’t been given any other orders. Nothing it could misconstrue as a go-ahead to threaten someone for any reason.”

“After last night, we know a deviant android can murder without a problem. This may not have gotten that far, but it could have,” Gavin says.

“The hospital has reported an additional two missing androids,” RK900 says. “If you could forward the full files for all three units, the DPD can look into what made this one act violently while the other two simply disappeared.”

Typical, Gavin thinks. The unemotional machine can’t tell that this is a case of probable child abuse, and the MC500 must not have programmed routines for handling it, so it turned to the closest thing it could consider a solution. It tried to solve a problem it wasn’t programmed to solve.

“I can do that,” Dr. Welch says. “You’ll have it by the time you get back to the precinct. You’ll be taking the android off our hands, won’t you?”

Gavin stands up, straightening his jacket. “For now, it’s considered evidence, so it has to come with us.”

“That’s no problem.” Dr. Welch stands, too, and pulls a lanyard with a card attached out from under her white coat. “I’ll take you downstairs.”

“Before we go,” RK900 interjects, making both Gavin and Dr. Welch turn to it. “Do you mind if I copy this surveillance footage for later review?”

Dr. Welch glances between it and the screen for a moment before looking at Gavin. “Is that safe? I want to cooperate, but I have sensitive patient data on this machine.”

As far as Gavin can tell from his brief time knowing RK900, it doesn’t care about anything other than the case and advancing through the investigation. At least Dr. Welch is getting a warning before the damn thing interfaces with her computer.

“It’s not interested in your patient data.”

“It wouldn’t be relevant,” RK900 adds.

“Fine, then,” Dr. Welch says, and gestures for it to go ahead.

RK900 nods and lays a hand on the screen, skin deactivating. It takes only a moment for the data to transfer and then it’s pulling away and moving to retake its place at Gavin’s shoulder as the three of them exit the office.

Dr. Welch takes them to the elevator and down to the limited-access levels. They pass by the morgue and enter a room that’s lined on three sides by MC500 android parking. There are many more of them than there are at the station and Gavin knows he must be imagining it, but he feeling like their eyes are following them.

They’re led to the storage cabinet and cold room, where spare parts and thirium are kept. Laid down on a supply shelf, is the MC500, with the component from the base of its skull pulled out.

“We couldn’t get it to deactivate normally,” Dr. Welch explains as she pulls the loose biocomponent off another shelf and holds it out to Gavin.

That’s something that’ll have to be added to the case file: deviants can’t be deactivated without force. It’s quite the oversight, but maybe CyberLife hadn’t been able to anticipate their androids breaking down like this. Or maybe Elijah Kamski knew exactly what he was doing.

“What will happen to it once the case is over?” Dr. Welch asks. “Is there any chance it can be reset? It’s still hospital property.”

“You want this thing back?” Gavin asks, frowning at her.

“It’s a resource, and we’re not really in a position to turn down resources of any kind. Whatever can be fixed, we try to hold onto.”

“It would be unwise,” RK900 says. “But we will keep it under advisement in the event that we discover deviants can be repaired.”

Dr. Welch sighs. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for. Well, it’s all yours.”

RK900 steps forward to lift the MC500 off the shelf, easily supporting its weight.

This is the oddest arrest Gavin has ever made, if it can even be considered that. With one of its components in his hands, there’s no need to cuff it, and there’s certainly no point to reciting the Miranda rights, even if it were online. It doesn’t have rights and it’s not like it needs a lawyer, or will be taken to court.

It’s for the best that it’s deactivated. From what Gavin has heard, Anderson wouldn’t like seeing it active as it’s walked into the precinct like the average human criminal, that’s for sure.

“We’re done here, then.”

Dr. Welch takes them back to the elevator and parts ways with them on the ground floor.

At the car, Gavin opens the back door for RK900 to drop the MC500 on the backseat, and then they’re off to the precinct, neither of them saying a single word to each other.

All the way back to the station, Gavin replays the scene in his head, of that nervous boy with the broken arm and his father looming over him. The man is careful, looking so at ease that no one suspects anything is wrong other than a child experiencing his first broken bone.

Gavin’s first had been his nose, as he’d been slammed face-first into a glass coffee table at the age of seventeen. After fifteen years in law enforcement, Gavin is no stranger to concussions, but when he thinks about his worst head injury, he still thinks all the way back to creaking glass and Adrian Kamski’s large hand clamped around the back of his neck.

He lets RK900 take the reigns with submitting the MC500 to evidence when they get back to the precinct. With the android finally out of sight, he goes to Tina’s desk and shoves his hand down on the hard copy report she’s filling in.

“Let’s go somewhere for lunch, today, c’mon.”

Tina groans and pushes his arm out of the way. “Fuck off, I’ve gotta get this done.”

“Tina.” He flicks her pen and she pulls away only to come back just as fast and try to stab his hand with it. “The bot is down in evidence, I have a limited window to escape, here.”

She rolls her eyes but she drops the pen onto her desk and pushes the report to the side.

“You’re so high-maintenance,” she grumbles.

“Uh huh. Let’s go.”

They make it out of the station before RK900 reappears from evidence, which is the first good thing to happen to Gavin all day. He sighs a breath of relief as he and Tina hurry down the street towards the only decent quick service place within walking distinct of the precinct.

“So, it’s that bad, huh?” Tina asks.

“Whoever programmed this prick forgot to add the code that forces it to _listen_. It only does half of what I tell it to do, and it fucking… it has those eyes that make it seem like it’s judging you constantly.”

Tina snorts a laugh. “I mean, you sort of ask for a little judgement.”

“Yeah, and you’re allowed to say that because we’ve known each other for six years. RK900 just got here today and thinks it’s hot shit.”

They arrive at the little place on the corner that they occasionally go to when they’re both actually on site over lunchtime and feel like getting out of the station for awhile. Gavin pulls the door open and holds it for Tina, then follows her in.

“RK900? You have to call it by its model number?” Tina asks as they join the line.

Gavin shrugs. “They’ve got names. 900 is Victor, I think.”

“Less of a mouthful.”

“I guess.”

They order their food and pick a table by the windows where they can watch the street and all the people and cars moving by. Just from this location, Gavin can see a handful of androids. There are androids parked by the bus stop across the street, there’s one walking two dogs down in the direction of the precinct. Even the fast food place itself has been gaining more and more android employees over the years, becoming nothing but a group of EM400s with one human supervisor.

None of them look like RK800 and RK900, especially the later. Where most androids are made to look personable and safe, RK900 just looks like a cold-blooded powerhouse, even more so than the one android who shares his exact appearance.

“How long do you think you’re going to be stuck with it?” Tina asks.

“Who fucking knows. Christ, we’ve already got dozens of reports and they’re still coming in. Even if we don’t bother with the ones that just disappear out of homes without any trouble, we could be at it awhile.” Gavin takes a long drink of his coffee. “Best case scenario, we figure out why this shit is happening quick, CyberLife deals with it, and then the rest don’t matter anymore.”

“You know,” Tina says with a dramatic sigh, “I’m going to miss our time together. You’ve gotten yourself a real partner and now I won’t get to do drug busts with you anymore…”

“Shut up,” Gavin says, shaking his head.

“Old Mr. Atherton says someone broke into his shed, again. What I wouldn’t give to spend an evening arresting mouthy Red Ice junkies instead of pretending to look for evidence that someone made a pass at a pile of antiquated junk.”

“Well, hey, I’ll put in a good word for you and maybe _you_ can be put on android babysitting duty!”

Tina crumples up her food wrapper and throws it at his face, making him laugh.

He’s still not happy about the machine waiting for him back at the precinct or this shitty assignment that amounts to his own personal hell, but getting away for a bit to hang out with Tina does ease his bad mood, some.

Considering what he plans to do with his afternoon, he’s going to need the boost. RK900 will want to choose another report now that they’ve already got the MC500 in custody, but Gavin isn’t quite ready to let this one go, and he knows he’s going to have to fight the plastic prick the entire way through.

Gavin and Tina finish up, throw out their garbage, and head back to the station.

Surprisingly, RK900 hasn’t commandeered Gavin’s desk again during his absence, it’s standing next to the desk, a glossy look in its eyes. Its LED is spinning blue, working, but apparently nothing too taxing.

Tina knocks their elbows together and smirks at him before taking her leave.

Gavin huffs a breath and sits down, hoping the android keeps doing whatever it is it’s doing while he brings up the MC500 file. He sees that RK900 has already updated it with additional information from their talk with Dr. Welch and made note of its apprehension.

That isn’t what Gavin is looking for. He goes back to the initial report and reads the details on the incident, then finds the contact information. He gets a name, an address, and a phone number. Oliver Thompson doesn’t have a criminal record, but he did go to court to fight a custody battle over his son. A custody battle he should have lost, if Gavin is right, and Gavin is pretty sure that he is.

RK900 shifts next to his desk, looking down at him. “I have already selected another deviant for us to investigate.”

Gavin ignores him and punches the information he needs into his phone. When he shuts the report and stands up from his desk, RK900 is looking at him with slightly narrowed eyes.

“You can either stay here while I wrap up a loose end,” Gavin tells it before the it can cause a fuss, “or you can tag along and keep quiet while I do what I have to do.”

RK900 does that uncanny head tilt thing it does when it’s processing. “Are you following a lead?”

“Something like that,” Gavin mutters as he starts to walk away.

He isn’t shocked when RK900 follows him.

It’s a summer afternoon and Oliver Thompson’s son has a recently broken arm, so he’s most likely at home instead of in school or out playing with his friends. Thompson is a programmer who works out of his home, so he should be around the house, too. It’ll be easy to get a few words with both of them.

“What are you hoping to get out of the Thompsons?” RK900 asks only a few minutes into the drive.

It’s unnerving that it can make connections so fast with very little information.

“Just let me handle it or I really will leave you in the car this time.”

“If you think more information can be gained about the incident, it would be quite simple to reactivate the MC500 and either question it or probe its memory.”

“Probe its memory? Jesus. You can do that?”

“I can.”

Gavin doesn’t like the sound of that, even if it’s probably standard data transfer. It’s just an invasive-sounding term to use, and anyway, that isn’t what Gavin is after.

“Nah, this is something I want a human perspective on.”

“I don’t see how the evidence already logged is insufficient,” RK900 says, managing to sound almost exasperated.

“I fucking told you, I’m looking into something, and I don’t need you on my case about it,” Gavin snaps.

He’s saved from further arguing when they pull into the Thompsons’ driveway. Gavin parks the car, undoes his seatbelt, and then shifts to face the android next to him with a hard look.

“So, are you going to do what I told you to do or are we going to have a problem?”

RK900 sighs, and it’s the most expressive and human-like the machine has looked since Gavin first laid eyes on it in Fowler’s office.

“I am not here for you to order around, Detective Reed,” it says, “I am here to complete the mission CyberLife assigned me. Connor and I are to solve the deviancy problem at any costs. We will cooperate with the police department so long as our objectives do not conflict with each other. If you mean to hinder my progress, we will indeed have a problem, but otherwise, we will only have a problem if you make it one.”

It says all this with a completely straight and blank face, no hesitation or compromise. Gavin gets the idea immediately that RK900 follows orders fine, it’s just Gavin’s orders that it vehemently ignores. Their partnership is necessary protocol for android oversight, but if RK900 could conduct the investigation alone, it would.

For all that Gavin despises androids for the economic upset, for the job insecurity, for the role the company played in his late teenage years, he’s never been so uniquely bothered by one specific android, before.

“It would benefit us both to work as a team,” RK900 says primly. “If you are even capable of such professionalism.”

Gritting his teeth, Gavin turns away from the android and throws his car door open. He needs to focus on what he came here for instead of the anger with an undertone of insecurity that’s building up inside of him, threatening to put him off his game.

“You’ve made your fucking point,” he says as he steps out of the car.

He takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders back before squaring up. He’s about to make some plays and he can’t afford to have his equilibrium thrown off. Getting pissed about his android partner can wait until after he’s done what little he can for a young boy with a broken arm and a piece of shit father.

It takes a couple minutes for Oliver Thompson to answer the door and Gavin uses every second of those two minutes preparing.

He puts on a casual, non-confrontational face as the door finally opens.

“Hi, Mr. Thompson?”

“Yeah…?”

Gavin pulls his badge off his belt and flashes it at the man. “I’m Detective Reed from the Detroit Police Department, looking into an android that assaulted you and your son yesterday. Could I come in and ask you a few questions, sir?”

Thompson frowns at him. “I already gave my report.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but protocol is protocol, you know?” Gavin gives him a lopsided grin and a slight shrug. “Promise I’ll get out of your hair as quick as I can. Just want to make sure the android gets what’s coming to it.”

After a tense moment, Thompson nods and steps aside, opening the door wider. “Alright. I have time for a couple questions.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gavin says as he steps inside, RK900 right behind him.

A quick glance around at what part of the house he can see from the entrance shows that the kid isn’t in the living room, and most likely not in the kitchen down the hall, unless he’s further around the corner and isn’t making any noise. The stairs to the upper floor are just to the left, so Gavin stays where he is within eyeshot of them instead of suggesting they go sit down in the living room.

“So, broken arm, huh?” Gavin starts. “Your son’s ten, right? I remember being that age, getting into so much trouble. Kids think they’re invincible.”

Thompson smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, he was messing around with some other kids in the neighbourhood. Hopefully he’ll be more careful, now that he knows what can happen.”

“Mhm.” Gavin glances up the stairs. “Is your boy around? Between the two of you, I should have what I need in no time.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. I can answer all your questions,” Thompson says.

“I know, I know, the process is a pain in the ass, but I’d really rather get both your statements than reactivate the android for questioning.”

Thompson scratches the back of his neck. “You still have the android?”

“Yeah, it’s locked up in evidence at the precinct, you don’t have to worry about it. We could wake it up and search its memory banks but I think it’s for the best that it stays shut down, after what it did to you folks.”

“That thing is dangerous, it definitely shouldn’t be reactivated,” Thompson says. “It could have killed us!”

Gavin nods emphatically. “I completely agree. That’s why I’m here.”

“Right. Of course.” The man steps closer to the stairs and calls up to the kid. “Charlie! Get down here!”

Charlie appears at the landing above, looking down shyly at his father and then Gavin, and finally RK900.

“C’mon, the police want to ask about the android that attacked us in the hospital,” Thompson says.

The boy comes down the stairs and then Thompson ushers them into the living room. Charlie sits in the middle of the couch, eyes down on his lap, and Thompson stays standing. There’s enough space that Gavin can maneuver himself between them, but for now, he stays at the side.

“So, the android was acting normally the first time you interacted with it?” he asks, looking between them both to invite an answer from either of them.

It’s Thompson who answers, as Gavin expected. “Sure, it seemed fine, at first. When it snapped, it came out of nowhere.”

That would have been totally believable to Gavin, if he hadn’t seen the footage firsthand. It would have been so easy to imagine an android just erroring suddenly, putting human lives at risk, but he knows it wasn’t like that. Even a cop without Gavin’s personal experience would have been able to tell that it wasn’t so simple.

“Can you describe its behaviour for me?”

Thompson nods, casting his eyes down like he’s focused on accessing his memory instead of the room around him. “It started acting more and more erratic. We were told it would just do the cast and then take us to sign out, but it broke out of the routine towards the end. It stopped following all its protocols, as far as I can tell.”

“Go on,” Gavin encourages.

“It snatched up the scissors and started waving them around. By then I could see it was completely out of control, no longer following any programming, so I called for the staff. Everything went pretty quickly, after that.”

“It’s a good thing you acted so fast, sir.”

Thompson nods. “I figured it wasn’t worth the risk to troubleshoot with a malfunctioning android like that.”

Gavin moves further into the room, stepping in front of Charlie. The boy looks up at him, but only for a second before his gaze shifts to where RK900 is still standing vigil by the entrance to the room.

“You don’t have to worry about him,” Gavin says softly. He looks over his shoulder to Thompson and adds, “I wouldn’t bring a dangerous android into your home, sir, it’s functioning just fine.”

As Thompson’s gaze slides over to RK900, Gavin quickly puts his hand into the front of his jacket and pulls out a personal business card from an inside pocket and then crouches down in front of Charlie, handing it over as casually as he can, blocking the movement from Thompson’s view. Charlie takes it just as carefully, following Gavin’s lead.

“Is that how you remember it, too, Charlie?” he asks as he taps the cuff of his jacket with his index finger.

Charlie furrows his brow as he watches the gesture. Gavin points his finger at the card in Charlie’s hand and then taps his sleeve again.

Biting his lip nervously, Charlie slips the card underneath the palm of his cast.

“If there’s anything else you remember, you can tell me,” Gavin says. “Even if you think of it later, you can get in touch. There’s no rush.”

Charlie shakes his head. “No… no, I don’t remember anything.”

“That’s alright. It sounds like your dad had a firm control over the situation.”

“Yeah.”

Gavin stands up, reaching out to grasp Charlie’s shoulder comfortingly. “Hope you feel better soon, Charlie.”

“Do you have everything you need, Detective?” Thompson asks.

“That should be everything, thanks,” Gavin says as he offers his hand to shake. “It’s a relief that we won’t have to deal with the android. The hospital might complain about a few thousand wasted dollars, but you can’t put a price on public safety, right? I assure you, I won’t let that machine back in rotation.”

“Good,” Thompson says. “Glad we could help.”

On the way out, Gavin manages to catch Charlie’s eye, nodding to him and giving him a soft smile. He only gets a slight upturn of the boy’s lips in return, but it’s reassuring.

“Take care, kid,” he says before leaving the house.

Gavin wishes he could do more, but he’s only operating on instinct and personal experience, which just isn’t enough to take action. He sighs as he pulls out of the Thompsons’ driveway and turns on the radio to give him something to take up space in his mind before he can think too long about abused children and how frustratingly complicated it can be to help them. The classic radio station plays pop from when Gavin was a kid, easing him with its familiarity.

It takes RK900 longer than Gavin anticipated to say anything.

“That had nothing to do with the MC500,” it says.

“Nope.” There’s no point in denying it.

“You are pursuing the wrong thread of investigation.”

Gavin’s grip tightens on the steering wheel. “Who are you to say it’s the wrong thread? I’m a fucking detective and there are cases outside of CyberLife’s deviancy scare.”

“It isn’t relevant.”

“Fuck you,” Gavin growls.

This is why androids shouldn’t be in any position where a little emotion and care is necessary. Machines are abrasive, acting according to strict rules, and can’t fucking deal when things are more complicated than their manufactured processors are built for. Real life isn’t ones and zeros.

The MC500 was different, Gavin can’t help but think, even though that can’t be the case. It couldn’t have really understood what it was doing, only responding bizarrely to some mixed-up code, but it still looked so genuine. It looked like it picked up on the same signals as Gavin, and acted outside of its parameters because of them. It almost seemed like the android was capable of caring.

Not like RK900.

“This was personal, for you,” RK900 says quietly, almost like it’s speaking to itself more than Gavin.

Gavin pointedly turns up the radio and doesn’t reply.


	4. Chapter 4

AUG 24, 2038

After the initial rocky start, Connor finds working with the Detroit City Police Department to be more than adequate. He has vague recollections of system checks spent testing all his important functions alongside Victor, and the sense he received afterwards that he was doing what he was made for, but none of it compares to the fulfillment of assisting in real life cases.

Lieutenant Hank Anderson is an intriguing individual. Prior to Park Ave., the only humans Connor had interacted with were employees of CyberLife, all focused on their distinct tasks. The humans he knows from CyberLife don’t play the role of a partner, they don’t even play the role of handler, like Amanda. Lieutenant Anderson and the rest of the DPD, are a fresh experience, and Connor is dutifully cataloguing the new information.

He is finding Lieutenant Anderson to be a good partner. The man is uncomfortable with androids in general, but only took a couple of days to at least become amicable with Connor, accepting that they will be working together for the foreseeable future and that Connor can be trusted to do the job well.

There are certain aspects of their working relationship that Connor would like to improve, however, such as the Lieutenant’s penchant for arriving to work so late that their progress with the case is slowed. Between his tardiness and his refusal to let Connor handle the paperwork with his superior efficiency, they only manage to look into one report a day, and have yet to find a single deviant. Detective Reed and Victor, on the other hand, have apprehended two: the MC500 on their first day, and an EM400 that illogically chose to hide in the frozen meat locker of the restaurant it worked in rather than flee the scene.

Simply suggesting that the Lieutenant strive to keep work hours had only gotten him glares and biting words in response, so Connor has decided to take a more direct approach.

At 8 o’clock in the morning, Connor rings Lieutenant Anderson’s doorbell.

There does not appear to be any sound, light, or movement from within the house. Connor rings the doorbell again, longer this time.

He is met with muffled barking.

The Lieutenant’s dog, Sumo. St. Bernard. Connor is interested in meeting him.

The dog continues to bark until Connor hears a distant male voice telling him to ‘calm the fuck down’.

A disheveled Lieutenant Anderson opens the door, a scowl already on his face. Based on the state of his hair and clothes, he’d recently been in bed.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Connor says.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The Lieutenant’s voice is gruffer than usual. “We got a case?”

“We always have a case, Lieutenant,” Connor says.

Sumo barks again and presses up against Lieutenant Anderson’s leg to see what’s going on. He’s big, even bigger than the average St. Bernard, and he looks very soft. Connor doesn’t have any data on ‘soft’ and would like to log a new tactile sensation.

“Hi, Sumo. My name is Connor.” He holds his palm out for the dog.

Lieutenant Anderson huffs in annoyance as Sumo sniffs at Connor’s hand and then gives it a lick. He moves into the house, ignoring the two of them, which allows Connor to step inside and pull the door shut behind him.

Sumo allows him to pet along his back, becoming settled now that the brief excitement has passed, already accepting Connor’s presence.

Connor continues to pet Sumo, up until the sound of kibble falling into a bowl can be heard from the kitchen and the dog lumbers away from him.

The Lieutenant’s house is simple, but cluttered enough to look well lived in. Connor takes note of all the books and music lining the walls as he follows Sumo’s path towards the kitchen in search of his partner.

“So, let me ask again,” Lieutenant Anderson says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m here to assist you in getting to work on time,” Connor tells him. “I will make you something to eat while you get ready.”

The Lieutenant’s face screws up in displeasure, which isn’t the reaction Connor set out to receive.

“For fuck’s sake, can you let it go, already? I show up when I show up.”

“That isn’t station protocol.”

“Well, I don’t give a shit about station protocol!”

Connor regards the Lieutenant for a moment, processing. He has been gathering what information he can about his partner over the past week, and he has concluded that Lieutenant Anderson is simultaneously very good at his job and very careless with it. If not for his close relationship with the Captain and his reputation from the Red Ice Task Force, it is possible that Lieutenant Anderson would have lost his job. His work ethic and attitude are rarely pleasant, yet once Connor gets him out to look at a scene or ask someone some questions, he is very thorough and effective.

It is a series of contradictions that Connor does not understand. The Lieutenant is good at his job and even seems to enjoy it, in the moment, but the rest of the time, he acts like he doesn’t care to hold onto it.

Connor can only do what he perceives to be helpful.

“Then I will care about station protocol for you, Lieutenant. Go take a shower and get dressed. Breakfast will be ready promptly.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Lieutenant Anderson snaps at him.

“Of course not, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant sneers at him like a dog with its hackles raised, but in the face of Connor’s immovability, he relents, turning away from him. “Fine, since it’s not like I’ll be able to get back to sleep, now, anyway...” he grumbles as he goes.

Connor takes inventory of Lieutenant Anderson’s kitchen, opening the fridge, freezer, and all the cupboards one after another, then searches for something appropriate to make. The Lieutenant has enough for Connor to make a fried egg breakfast sandwich, so that’s what Connor does.

The coffee maker isn’t too different from the one at the precinct, and Connor sets that up as well. The Lieutenant has a wide variety of mugs, including ones from other major Northeastern cities where he must have attended police conferences, some with vulgar and humorous statements on them, one that is patterned with little cartoon puppies, and one that is made of very misshapen fired clay and painted with uneven brush strokes. Connor pulls that last one out and turns it upside down in search of a manufacturer label, wondering if the haphazard creation was intentional.

On the bottom, with the same paint but done with a much steadier hand, is ‘Cole A., age 4’.

Connor looks over his shoulder towards the hallway that leads to the rest of the house, but he can still hear the shower running and he shouldn’t expect the Lieutenant back for a few minutes, yet.

He searches his databases for the name Cole Anderson, in association with Hank Anderson.

Once he reviews the results, he replaces the mug in the cupboard, handling it with much more care than he had when picking it up. He selects the mug with the puppies on it, instead.

This puts things into perspective. Three years ago, Hank Anderson lost a son in a tragic accident, securing his discomfort with androids after an MC500 failed to save the child’s life in surgery, and turned him from one of the most reputable faces in Michigan law enforcement into a functioning alcoholic with a grouchy attitude.

Investigation complete. For once, Connor does not feel accomplished or satisfied.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

The shower turns off. Connor starts the coffee machine.

Everything is ready with perfect timing when the Lieutenant, freshly showered and dressed in clean clothes, returns to the kitchen. He glances warily at the plate on the table, and then blinks at Connor’s choice of mug before sitting down.

“You really do like dogs, huh?” he asks.

Now that Connor has met a dog, he can confidently say the experience has been pleasant. He sits down at the table across from the Lieutenant and nods.

“I like Sumo very much,” he says.

The dog, hearing his name, comes over to the table and sits close enough that Connor can scratch behind his ears.

The Lieutenant watches them quietly as he eats.

Connor does some research, looking up the stages of grief and the effects that losing a child can have on an individual. Lieutenant Anderson seems to be steadfastly stuck in the depression phase, and is coping only slightly below average for parents who lose a child so young.

He has never considered how fragile humans are.

He thinks back to the penthouse balcony at Park Ave. and Mrs. Philips’ frantic and distraught behaviour as she’d been pulled from the scene. At the time, Connor had known, objectively, how vital the mission was. He’d known that human lives were at stake and that he had his orders and that Amanda would have been disappointed if he and Victor had failed.

If they had failed, Mrs. Philips would have lost her daughter in addition to her husband. He wonders how Mrs. Philips would have reacted if little Emma had fallen from the rooftop with the deviant, lost forever.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

The Lieutenant finishes eating and sets the dirty dishes in the sink. Connor stands to join him.

“Be a good boy, Sumo,” Lieutenant Anderson tells his dog and then heads for the front door, picking up his keys on the way.

When they arrive at the precinct much earlier than Lieutenant Anderson's usual time, they receive more than one surprised look. The Lieutenant scowls in response, but doesn’t engage anyone in an argument.

Detective Reed and Victor are already at their desks, Victor now seated across from the detective after the previous owner agreed to move elsewhere for the ease of Victor’s integration. Victor meets Connor’s eyes and nods in greeting, then sends his suggested tasks for the day, as he’d chosen while Connor was busy picking up Lieutenant Anderson.

“We have a report lined up for investigating, Lieutenant, if you’re ready,” Connor says, stopping Lieutenant Anderson before he can sit down at his desk.

“Jesus Christ,” the Lieutenant says. “We just got here.”

“As I have told you every single time you do not allow me to update the case files, Victor and I can handle data with much greater efficiency than a human. Apparently, a second advantage we have on humans is being able to recognise useful information when it is offered and immediately adapt to it.”

The Lieutenant raises his eyebrows at him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were fucking sassing me.”

Connor is, in fact, sassing the Lieutenant. Most of his more elaborate social programs are for negotiations and interrogations, when he needs to create a certain personality in order to manipulate someone into reacting the way he wants, but he has enough integration programming to notice that Lieutenant Anderson responds favourably to certain social cues, particularly “friendly”, “genuine”, and occasionally “sarcastic”.

“I would never disrespect you like that, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant huffs an almost laugh, shaking his head. “Fine, let’s fucking go, then.”

The missing android report takes them to the local University, whose oldest PJ500 model vanished from campus a week before. The android had worked seamlessly on campus for years before the unexpected disappearance.

The head of the Language department, Professor Juarez, grants them admittance to the building where the PJ500 had an office to create its lesson plans and assignments, as well as go into stasis for its system diagnostics.

“We’re hoping he simply got lost on campus and shut down, but his tracker is offline and no one has found him,” the department head says as he pushes the office door open for them. “He has always functioned just fine. If you can find him, we’d be grateful to have him back.”

They have investigated enough reports now to double and triple check that a disconnected tracker definitely means the android has deviated, which means that if they find the PJ500, it won’t be able to stay on campus. Connor doesn’t bother saying as much as he steps into the office and starts looking around.

“We’ll do what we can,” Lieutenant Anderson says.

Professor Juarez nods. “Help yourselves to whatever you need here, and you’re free to walk the campus. Let me know if you find anything.”

“You got it.”

The room is small and clean. There's a desk with a computer, a cabinet for hard files, and a small bookshelf of textbooks and classic literature. The desk has a spare, unopened bottle of thirium inside one of the drawers, and a single framed photograph sitting next to the computer screen.

The picture shows two people: the PJ500, and another professor, both smiling. The PJ500 is wearing a CyberLife professional uniform, not unlike Connor’s, and the human professor is dressed more casually in a grey tank top that reveals their heavily tattooed skin.  

“Dr. Kay Szántó, 43 years old, Engineering department,” Connor says out loud and then hands the photograph to Lieutenant Anderson.

“Engineering? Not Language?”

“Perhaps Dr. Szántó is in charge of android maintenance,” Connor says.

He turns the computer on and interfaces with it, searching for anything out of the ordinary. It’s nothing but lessons and the related software. The only people the android emailed were its students and Szántó.

“Why would it have a picture of the maintenance handler on its desk? Especially one where they look like just… a couple of friends.”

“I do not know,” Connor admits, hand still on the computer. “They exchanged correspondences fairly regularly a few years ago, but it eventually tapers off. The tone of their emails becomes increasingly casual. I would suggest they switched to more private and instant methods of communication.”

“Hm,” the Lieutenant intones. He moves to the bookshelf and tilts his head to read the names of the books. “Lot of philosophy here for a language professor.”

Connor shuts the computer back down and joins the Lieutenant at the shelf, quickly scanning all the titles into his memory. Sure enough, there are texts on morality and ethics that are out of place for an android that is only programmed to teach language.

“Dr. Szántó should be working in one of the Engineering buildings right now.”

“Let’s pay ‘em a visit, then.”

The location where the deviant’s tracker went offline is on the way, according to the report, just over halfway between the Arts buildings and the Engineering quad. As they walk the path together, Connor does frequent scans and inspects the nearby buildings for somewhere the PJ500 could have gotten lost, or chosen to hide.

On a shortcut that borders on some student residences, Connor raises a hand to stop the Lieutenant.

“There’s thirium, here.”

Lieutenant Anderson looks around expectantly, even though Connor has already told him that thirium fades with time. The stains are old enough to be invisible to the human eye.

He crouches down to get a closer look, though it’s far too thin and dry to take a sample. There are enough splatters to suggest a decent amount of damage, and some of the thirium is shaped like it was tracked on the sole of a shoe. He scans, and finds at least two distinct footprints.

Standing back up, Connor lifts one of his feet to look at the bottom of his own shoe. It is similar to one of the marks on the ground, a CyberLife standard for androids with assignments that require business attire.

He scans the rest of the area. Next to the path is some green space, dotted with trees, benches, and picnic tables. At the table closest, Connor notices some patches of damaged grass. He goes over and takes a closer look, pushing a couple fingers down into the soil and then bringing them to his mouth.

“What the fuck? Did you just _eat dirt_?” Lieutenant Anderson says.

Connor looks up at him and finds that the expression on the lieutenant’s face is shocked and disgusted.

“The grass is dry and the soil is infused with yeast. Beer was spilled, here.”

“Great! Did you have to eat dirt to figure that out?!”

“I did not eat dirt,” Connor says. “I sampled it to determine its composition.”

“Same fucking thing.”

It is not the same thing but Connor decides to let the issue lie and continues to look for clues.

Sunlight glints off something in the pavement and Connor bends back down again to inspect it.

“Finely broken glass,” he explains out loud as he swipes his finger through it and feels the grit on his biosensors. “It is most likely that a shattered bottle was cleaned up here, but some of the smallest, crushed pieces were left behind.”

The Lieutenant still appears disgruntled about the dirt, but Connor’s prompting has him quickly returning to the matter of the investigation. “So, what, someone damaged the android with a broken beer bottle, making it deviate and take off?”

“That is a possibility, yes. The scene was cleaned up, that’s all I can find.”

“It’s more than enough. Maybe too much.” Lieutenant Anderson throws a look at the disturbed grass patch. “Let’s just go see the engineering prof.”

Connor stands up again and leads the Lieutenant the rest of the way to Dr. Szántó’s engineering lab. He continues to scan, and finds a trail of thirium splotches along the entire way, as well as a large smudge of it in the corner of the elevator down to the subfloors.

“The PJ500 continued in this very same direction,” he tells Lieutenant Anderson.

“Szántó must know something, then.”

The engineer’s back is turned to the doors when Connor and the Lieutenant step into the large room, talking to a teacher’s assistant. The lab is full of equipment, from computers to construction arms and holotables. It’s certainly the lab of someone who would know a thing or two about android maintenance.

Lieutenant Anderson clears his throat.

Dr. Szántó looks over their shoulder at them and then holds up a finger as a sign to wait before turning back to their assistant.

Even from a distance, Connor can hear the conversation, but they’re only talking about planning for the upcoming Fall term, coordinating classes. The student nods, gathers a tablet from the nearest desk, and bows out.

Dr. Szántó comes over to them, sizing them up. Their eyes linger on Connor the longest, reading not only his model number, but his serial number, which is more than most people bother to do.

“What can I do for you two?” they ask, eyes still on Connor.

Connor has never shied away from taking an active part in their investigations, especially not after the Lieutenant confirmed that he doesn’t mind Connor jumping in, but this is the first time someone they’re questioning has openly addressed him instead of his human partner.

“Hi, my name is Connor, and this is my partner, Lieutenant Anderson, with the Detroit Police Department,” he introduces. “We’re looking into the disappearance of a PJ500 android that went missing from this campus.”

“Yeah?” Szántó asks. “What do you want to know?”

“The android had a photograph with you in its office and the two of you were in communication with each other. Were you close?”

Szántó leans back against a holotable, casually crossing both their arms and their legs as they regard Connor. “Sure, we’re friends. Haven’t heard from him in about a week.”

“Friends?” Lieutenant Anderson repeats. “We thought maybe you were assigned as a maintenance handler.”

Dr. Szántó purses their lips and shakes their head. “No, we met at a holiday faculty gathering, few years back. He was the best company in the room, I’ll tell you that.”

They’re making jokes and being cagey, and Connor can only assume this means they’re hiding something, trying to deflect and act natural. He looks around the room again, this time scanning as well.

One table in particular is heavily stained with thirium.

“Do you work with androids at all, Dr. Szántó? Any building or programming for CyberLife or its competitors?”

“No. I don’t work in fields that involve advanced AI.”

Connor slowly steps away from the engineer and Lieutenant Anderson, gazing idly around the lab as he moves around the table, dropping a palm down onto it. The thirium is denser than the faint splatters elsewhere, suggesting that an android bled significantly while laying on top of it, but it is still old enough that it can’t be sampled.  

“Can you tell us about the PJ500’s behaviour leading up to its disappearance?”

“You wanna know about him?” Dr. Szántó deadpans, watching Connor with an unimpressed look. “ _His_ name is _Josh_.”

“‘Is’?” Lieutenant Anderson interjects. “Are you still in contact with the… with Josh?”

Dr. Szántó turns their gaze to the Lieutenant. “No, but I hope he’s still out there and doing well.”

The thought is absurd. “It is a deviant, which means it is dangerous,” Connor says.

Szántó scoffs. “If you’re here trying to ask me what he was like, then you can’t possibly know that he’s dangerous. You don’t know him at all.”

They speak as if there’s anything unique to know about an individual android other than what changed to cause its deviancy, as if the one designated as ‘Josh’ is somehow different from any of the other PJ500s the campus has amassed over the years, but that would be impossible. They all have the exact same programming, just for different educational subjects.

“I know enough,” Connor says. “I know that it must be apprehended.”

“You’re a piece of work, you know. I can’t fucking believe CyberLife made an android that despises their own kind.”

“We are machines, we cannot experience hate for each other,” Connor explains. “Deviant androids are a risk-”

“So, if you find Josh, what are you going to do with him, huh? Send him to CyberLife to be killed?”

“Hey, hey!” Lieutenant Anderson snaps, moving in between the two of them with his hands raised. “Dr. Szántó, please, don’t think of it like that. I see you’ve gained an attachment to the PJ500, but it’s not alive, it-”

“Don’t talk down to me,” Szántó says. They straighten up and close the distance between themself and Lieutenant Anderson. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. How long have you been on this case?”

Connor is surprised by the way the conversation is devolving. It doesn’t make sense for a human to get so hostile over a machine, especially one that would be a danger to them if it were still around.

He looks down at the table in front of him, at the thirium stains still marring its surface. The PJ500 had clearly come to this lab intentionally, after already breaking its programming, and then what? Two possible explanations are available: Dr. Szántó took the android apart for their own gain and is trying to cover it up, or they repaired the android instead, setting it free.

That would make them an accomplice.

Focusing back on the two humans in the room, he sees that they’ve faced off against each other entirely, as if they’ve forgotten he’s still there, in hearing range.

But Szántó then proves that they have not forgotten. “Are you telling me that if _he_ ,” they jab a finger in Connor’s direction, “got deactivated or disassembled or however you want to put it, you wouldn’t see that as a loss? He’s your partner!”

The Lieutenant looks over at Connor, his eyebrows furrowed.

Connor tries to reassure him. “If I were to be irreparably damaged, CyberLife would just send another unit, with my memories uploaded. It would not hinder the investigation.”

His words do not have the intended effect.

“They would _what_?” Lieutenant Anderson demands incredulously.

“Fucking hell,” Szántó mutters. “They programmed him to hate his own kind _and_ undervalue his own worth.”

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

Lieutenant Anderson looks back at the engineer, an uncertain look on his face, and Connor doesn’t understand what exactly is bothering him.

“I think you should both go,” Szántó says. “I’m not telling you anything about Josh.”

Desperately wanting to regain some control over the conversation, Connor points down at the table in front of him. “Did you repair it? It was here, I can see the old thirium.”

“Connor, let it go,” Lieutenant Anderson says, sounding so tired all of the sudden. He starts heading for the doors out of the lab.

Connor wants to stay and push the issue. His objective is to hunt and apprehend deviants, he needs to ask more questions, he needs to interrogate, because Dr. Kay Szántó knows something. They’re throwing him off, they’re misdirecting. He could find this deviant if he just does his job properly.

But he doesn’t have protocols for this. Humans are supposed to be rightfully scared of deviants, are supposed to be cooperative because they understand that deviants are just machines.

Connor takes his quarter out of his jacket pocket and rolls it across his fingers, seeking to recalibrate, to reorder his processes.

“Connor, let’s go,” Lieutenant Anderson says again, now at the door.

It conflicts with his directive to continue hunting. Connor could ignore him and follow CyberLife’s orders instead. But to do so would leave him attempting to reason with Dr. Szántó and parsing the uncharted territory they are presenting him with.

“Coming, Lieutenant,” Connor says quietly, and hurries to catch up with him.

Dr. Szántó silently watches them go.

The walk back to the Lieutenant’s car is tense. Connor flips his coin up in the air over and over the entire way, until the repetitive motion of it blocks the disjointed thoughts in his processor.

He settles on just one thought instead: what Amanda will think of this. She will certainly view it as a missed opportunity at best, a complete failure at worst. He should not have been so thrown off; if he had analysed Dr. Szántó’s words and expressions better, he could have taken a better approach.

They have enough deviants to investigate to keep them busy for a long time. They know, going in, that most of them will be difficult - if not impossible - to find. The important thing, Connor decides, is that they have learned something: deviants are capable of emulating emotion well enough to convince humans that they are alive.

Connor glances at Lieutenant Anderson while they drive away from the campus and takes in his posture. His back is straighter than his usual casual slouch, making him appear rigid and uncomfortable. His jaw in clenched and his eyes narrowed as he watches the road ahead of them. His grip on the steering wheel is tight enough that his knuckles are white.

“Lieutenant, Dr. Szántó was misled,” Connor says. “There is no need to dwell on it.”

The Lieutenant grunts by way of reply. He doesn’t look any more relaxed. Despite all his social programming, Connor feels like he stumbles in interactions with Lieutenant Anderson just as often as he succeeds, saying the wrong thing or interpreting the Lieutenant’s thoughts incorrectly. He’s a complicated man, one who does not always voice his thoughts with sincerity and even has a tendency to contradict himself.

He assumes anything he says now will be unwelcome, and resigns them to a quiet drive back to the precinct.

It’s the Lieutenant who eventually speaks again.

“They were really upset by how we were talking about Josh,” he says suddenly. “Would it offend you if I only called you ‘RK800’? Or used the wrong pronouns?”

“RK800 is my model number, and I am the only active unit. It is as much a succinct identification as ‘Connor’ is.”

“But you’d rather be called by your actual name.”

“A human name puts humans at ease. It improves integration and establishes rapport.”

“Jesus Christ, Connor.”

“No, Lieutenant, it would not _offend_ me,” Connor says, surprising himself with how clipped his own tone is, completely without intention. “I cannot be offended. Does that assuage your doubts?”

Lieutenant Anderson sighs, the tension leaving his body, but it’s less like relaxation and more like exhaustion.

“Not exactly,” he grumbles, eyes still trained on the road.

* * *

When he and Victor visit the Zen Garden that night after Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Reed have finished their shifts and returned home, Connor is nervous. He doesn’t recall ever being nervous for a report to Amanda.

“Tell me,” Amanda says, “what have you learned about deviants, so far?”

The dynamic between him and Victor, based on their specialised roles in counterpoint with each other, often leaves Connor to do the talking. He wishes, just this once, that he could be the one to simply watch and listen.

He cannot raise suspicion, though, so he reports their findings. They have put together a good starting framework for how deviants work, including the kind of outside stimuli that triggers the malfunction and the changes it causes in both hardware and software.

“And how are your working relationships with the Lieutenant and the Detective?” Amanda asks.

This time, Victor does speak up. “Detective Reed is belligerent and uncooperative, and he does not make our case a priority. He is a capable detective, but can be unfocused. Attempting to improve our relationship while keeping him on task has been problematic.”

Amanda purses her lips, just enough for it to be obvious that she doesn’t care for this news. “Do not concern yourself with Detective Reed. If maintaining a sound partnership impedes your progress, then focus solely on the mission.”

“Very well,” Victor agrees.

Amanda looks to Connor, next.

Connor is enjoying getting to know Lieutenant Anderson, regardless of how their partnership might impact the case or the missteps he occasionally takes. After today, things feel a little precarious, but he has high hopes that they will work it out.

The Lieutenant is a good man, Connor thinks. He earned his title and he is a credit to the badge, even if he has struggled in the past three years. Connor wants to be part of the process that leads the Lieutenant back to his old reputation. He supposes he wants to be the Lieutenant’s friend.

“I have no complaints,” Connor says. “I believe Lieutenant Anderson cares about doing his job well and will not interfere with the investigation.”

“That is acceptable,” Amanda comments mildly. “He may prove to be a valuable resource.”

Lieutenant Anderson is more than just a resource, but Connor doesn’t verbally disagree, only nods in response.

“Continue on this path, there is still much to learn,” Amanda says as a dismissal.

The Zen Garden bleeds away into the precinct during the night shift. Connor sets himself a timed reminder to pick Lieutenant Anderson up in the morning once again, and then spends the rest of the night with one hand interfacing with his computer and the other flipping his coin up into the air.


	5. Chapter 5

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE AND HUNT DEVIANTS.  
SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: CREATE LIAISON WITH DPD (ASSIGNED PARTNER: DETECTIVE GAVIN REED).

>Delete SECONDARY OBJECTIVE?  
>...  
>Deletion order dismissed.

AMANDA: TRUSTED.  
CONNOR: TRUSTED.  
DETECTIVE REED: TENSE. 

SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC… COMPLETE.  
SOFTWARE… STABLE.

* * *

CASE FILE #72: JB100 #105 739 412  
STATUS: Deactivated on scene.

CASE FILE #30: AX400 #546 209 871  
STATUS: Missing.

CASE FILE #44: BV500 #726 052 430  
STATUS: Missing. 

CASE FILE #86: EM400 #807 406 137  
STATUS: Missing.

CASE FILE #81: TE900 #600 414 750  
STATUS: Deactivated on scene.

* * *

Nights at the precinct are a waste of time. Victor can only spend so many hours reviewing reports and updating files before there is little to do but sit and wait for Detective Reed to arrive in the morning or slip into stasis. He doesn’t need to run any diagnostics and his system is operating at optimal efficiency. He doesn’t like going into stasis when it is not necessary.

The night shift only consists of a few officers, bolstered by the PC200s and PM700s. He and Connor remain on site for convenience, unless either of them is in need of repairs or programming checks that require CyberLife personnel.

Most of the cases they look into are simple and not in the least bit dangerous. Victor doesn’t see why he and Connor, who are programmed to function without any assistance, cannot simply continue the investigation while their partners are away.

Connor spends the nights reading old files that have no relevance to their current case, and has even gained permission from Lieutenant Anderson to use his access information to review the more sensitive files.

“What do you gain from this exercise?” Victor asks him one night, sitting down in Anderson’s vacated seat to talk.

The on-duty officers are all either out in the city or in the break room using caffeine to stay awake. None of them ever speak to Victor or Connor.

“I’m learning,” Connor says. “The DPD has digital records that date back 30 years.”

“That is unnecessary. Our programming has been honed to perfection.”

Connor looks up from his computer screen to meet Victor’s eye. “As extensive as our databases and protocols are, humans can be extremely unpredictable. I’m seeking to expand my frame of reference.”

As their case primarily deals with deviant androids, this is still not relevant, though Victor can understand the logic path Connor followed in pursuit of a better understanding of humanity. He looks across the bullpen to his and Detective Reed’s desks, thinking about his relationship with his partner that has yet to progress the way Connor’s has with Lieutenant Anderson.

Victor knows that Detective Reed must have his reasons for disliking androids and keeping most people at an emotional distance. His relationship with Officer Chen appears strong, even though they spend a lot of time purposefully antagonising each other, and he tolerates Officer Miller and Detective Collins, but even they can barely be considered friends.

“Are you okay, Victor?”

Victor returns his gaze to Connor. “All system functions are operational.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

If that is the case, then Connor is asking a question that only applies to humans. He still gets the general sentiment.

“I’m fine,” he says. Connor continues watching him, expectantly, and Victor decides to elaborate. “Your relationship with Lieutenant Anderson has improved. Detective Reed and I are still in the same place as we were when we last reported to Amanda.”

“He isn’t making it easy for you,” Connor says. “But you haven’t given up?”

He should have discarded the objective. “No.”

Connor smiles, a rare expression. “I’m glad. I’m sure you will get through to him, eventually.”

In addition to Detective Reed’s difficult attitude, Victor is having trouble learning more about him as a person. Searching for the name ‘Gavin Reed’ mostly returns work related things, such as cases that made it into mainstream media. It’s almost as if the man hadn’t existed before his early twenties. If Victor wants to know more about him, he would have to ask, and he calculates the probability of success at a measly 22%.

“It isn’t the priority,” he says, to remind himself.

The only thing that matters is the primary objective.

But he does have time to kill, since advancing the objective is not possible without his partner, and reading old reports on cases Detective Reed closed over the years is a better use of time than going into stasis for several hours a day. He supposes Connor’s choice of pastime does make sense.

He returns to his own desk and starts all the way back at the beginning.

* * *

CASE FILE #67: ST300 #471 758 629  
STATUS: Deactivated on scene.

CASE FILE #43: ZT200 #100 876 776  
STATUS: Missing.

CASE FILE #73: PL600 #374 515 899  
STATUS: Deactivated on scene.  
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Reactivation impossible. 

CASE FILE #12: PC200 #894 246 805  
STATUS: Missing.

CASE FILE #96: TR400 #635 593 224  
STATUS: Missing.

* * *

SEPT 14, 2038

CASE FILE #102: AP700 #163 885 651  
STATUS: Inconclusive.

Advertisements for the new AP700 android model flash across the front of the CyberLife store, the panels alternating with windows where the models themselves are standing on display, enticing potential buyers.

“Fucking creepy,” Detective Reed mutters under his breath as they step through the front door. “How anyone can see them staring out blankly like that and still want to buy one is beyond me.”

The inside of the store is just as flashy, with androids lining the walls and interspersed across the showroom floor. A handful of civilians mill between the displays, one speaking with a VB800 android behind the large counter in the center of the room. The manager must not be too concerned about the attack, if he hasn’t chosen to close up while matters are sorted.

Another VB800 greets them and the detective raises his badge before it can offer to help them shop.

“Where’s your supervisor?” Detective Reed asks.

“He is in the back room, and told me to send you to him when you arrived. Proceed to the employees only section of the store,” the VB800 says.

Detective Reed heads for the back and Victor follows him. As they pass through the room, he notices one of the displays is now empty, where an AP700 used to stand. Its location is just in front of the counter on the right side, meaning the android who once stood there may have logged more information about passing humans as they conducted their business. Otherwise, it is a display like all the others, and none of the androids in the same area show signs of agitation.

In the back room, the store’s human manager and technician is sitting at a computer looking at code, with an inactive AP700 - their deviant suspect - standing next to the desk.

Victor scans it, and finds that its thirium pump regulator has been pulled out, keeping it dormant. When the manager is done with it, they will be able to take it into evidence and reactivate it, if necessary.

“Mr. Carter,” Detective Reed greets.

The man turns to look at them, and Victor takes in the sight of his injures. His eye is already starting to become surrounded by a purple bruise, and there are scratch marks down his arm.  

“Hey, DPD, I assume. Thanks for coming.”

Detective Reed nods at him. “You may want to put some ice on that, and clean up those scratches.”

“Don’t worry, did that while you were on the way.” Carter waves a dismissive hand.

“This is it, then?” Detective Reed asks, gesturing at the AP700. “Was it already back here when it attacked you?”

“Yeah,” Carter answers. “I’d just had a payment go through on an order and I brought it back to install the rest of its software before sending it on its way. It freaked out before I could even get started. Had to pull its pump regulator.”

The scene is simple, with the only signs of struggle being the injuries suffered by Carter. The android would appear fine to anyone who doesn’t know that there’s a hole in its torso, under its uniform, where the regulator should be. The biocomponent in question is still sitting on the desk.

Victor takes a moment to quickly crosscheck all the data he and Connor have gathered and shared between them. “This is the first known AP700 to go deviant,” he says. “It is the newest commercial model, and deviancy can affect it just as easily.”

“Good to know that no android is safe,” Detective Reed says with fake cheer.

“This one has been active for less than a week,” Carter says. “It’s practically fresh off the assembly line, shipped here right from the warehouse. I’m pretty surprised, myself.”

Many of the deviants they have looked into are old domestic models that disappeared out of homes or service models that have been in use for years, some with an upgraded version or two in their series already. They have theorized that despite an android’s long battery life, their processors might still be degrading with time, but that isn’t a problem an AP700 should have.

Detective Reed huffs a laugh. “This shit could really cost CyberLife, if they’re even losing the most expensive models, now.”

He is right and it isn’t what Victor would call a joking matter, but the detective seems amused.

“I’ll just have to set up another one. Here’s hoping the replacement doesn’t have the same problem,” Carter says.

It’s obvious that the issue isn’t a specific factory creating androids that are doomed to malfunction, otherwise there would be a noticeable pattern, but testing whether or not one shipment is uniform might be worthwhile data, Victor concludes.

“Do you have another from the same shipment? Detective Reed and I could stay while you prepare it, just in case.”

“Uh, yeah, there should be one. Good idea,” Carter says, and stands up from his desk chair.

Before he can take another step, there’s a crashing sound from the front of the store, and then a gunshot. Victor instantly sends an alert to the DPD of shots fired at their location.

He reaches out to push Carter back further away from the commotion at the same time that Detective Reed does the same, making them glance at each other briefly as they rush towards the door leading to the front of the store.

As they enter the showroom, a customer screams and a second gunshot rings out. Victor scans, examining the scene at lightning speed.

One perpetrator: a middle-aged man, average height and weight, sandy coloured hair, a mask covering the lower half of his face to hide his identity even from an android like Victor. He’s dual wielding a pair of pistols, and one is pointed in the direction of an AP700 that is now slumped to the floor, thirium leaking from a hole in its forehead. A couple feet behind the shooter, a VB800 is down as well, the result of the first shot.

Three civilians: a couple towards the middle who are backing up away from the shooter, and another man on his own, near the front windows of the store. The shooter isn’t facing or aiming at any of them, instead focused on the androids.

Conclusion: shooter is anti-android, and most likely fueled by anger and little else, if it seems like a viable solution to storm a public store just to destroy a few androids out of the millions CyberLife has produced and will continue to produce.

“DPD!” Detective Reed shouts, his own gun raised and pointed at the man. “Drop the weapons! Put them down, now!”

The shooter points one of the guns at Detective Reed instead, though Victor detects a slight waver in his arm. He could not have anticipated the DPD already being on the scene when he chose this moment to make his play.

“Not going to ask again, pal. Put the weapons on the ground!”

“Listen to the detective,” Victor says, taking a slow step forward with both his hands out to show that they’re empty, “and you can walk out of here, alive.”

The shooter hones in on Victor, eyes dating between the numbers on his jacket and the LED on his temple, and adjusts his aim to Victor instead of Detective Reed.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” the man says, voice muffled behind his face covering. “It’s not murder if they’re not alive!”

“That’s right. Things don’t have to get bad, here, if you listen to Detective Reed and put the guns on the ground.”

The shooter swings his second arm up, now pointing a gun at both of them, and his fingers twitch over the triggers.

Victor rams into Detective Reed’s side as the guns are fired, knocking him behind the cover of the store’s counter.

“Fuck!”

“Stay here, detective.”

“Like Hell-”

Victor moves around to the other side of the counter and rises up to look out from behind cover. The shooter is backing up towards one of the display androids, his eyes wide and wild. His chest in rising and falling with rapid breaths, and Victor suspects that he’s panicking, not thinking straight. It would be best to end things as quickly as possible.

Next to him, Detective Reed ignores Victor’s suggestion to stay down, and leans out of cover to point his gun at the shooter.

The shooter is not a deviant, he isn’t even an android, and so Victor could defer to Detective Reed in this instance instead of taking charge.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: CREATE LIAISON WITH DPD (ASSIGNED PARTNER: DETECTIVE GAVIN REED).

Victor makes the split decision to paint himself a larger target than his partner, and darts completely out from behind the counter. Between the ease of the shot and the shooter’s anti-android attitude, he has an 84% likelihood to ignore the detective in favour of shooting Victor.

“Stay back!” the shooter yells at him, voice tinged with fear.

Adding nervousness in the face of a more imminent threat, the chances that the shooter will fire at him instead of Detective Reed rises to 98%.

The shooter gets himself behind a display, using the blank AP700 as a shield. Victor cannot do the same: in front of him is the empty display where the deviant AP700 once stood.

A gun fires.

PRECONSTRUCTING…

Victor dodges across the front of the counter, snatches a tablet that’s laying on its surface, and tosses it like a frisbee straight for the shooter. The device strikes the man in the shoulder, disrupting his aim and causing the gun to point down at the floor, leaving an opening for Victor to close the distance between them.

The shooter gathers himself just as Victor gets within arms reach of him and shoves the AP700 out of the way, and one of the pistols comes all the way up towards Victor’s head. At this range, it’s more likely that the gun will randomly jam than it is that the shooter will miss the shot. If he fires, the bullet will lodge right into Victor’s main processor.

There’s a gunshot, and the shooter flinches instinctively, though the bullet from Detective Reed’s gun goes wide and was never meant to hit, only startle.

Victor grabs the wrist that’s pointing a gun at his face and twists hard until the shooter cries out and the pistol clatters to the floor. With his free hand he knocks the shooters other arm off kilter so the second pistol isn’t pointed at anyone.

In the background, Victor can hear Detective Reed cursing and one of the civilians hyperventilating.

Victor punches the shooter in the face and then wrestles the second pistol out of his hand while he’s reacting to the pain, spinning the gun around until the grip lands perfectly in his palm. He raises it up, a silent threat.

Detective Reed comes up beside him. “Hands in the fucking air!”

The shooter glances at the other gun abandoned on the floor, but Victor shifts to put himself in the way.

The shooter gives up, putting his hands in the air.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” he shouts even as Detective Reed pulls his handcuffs off his belt and grabs the shooter’s arm to spin him around. “You should have let me shoot it, it’ll come for your job, next!”

“You have the right to remain silent, prick,” Detective Reed says.

Victor keeps his gun trained on the man while Detective Reed arrests him and recites his rights.

The AP700 that the shooter used as a momentary shield is watching the proceedings, LED spinning yellow. It isn’t reacting in any other way, but it is internally processing. Androids on display in stores are typically left with the bare minimum of operational protocols until purchase, and shouldn’t have much ability to understand what’s going on around them or care to process it.

It should be a blank slate. It shouldn’t have any programming that would cause it to process and learn until it is bought.

Detective Reed has the shooter under control and is pulling him towards the front of the store. Backup will be arriving shortly; the situation is sufficiently resolving.

Victor slips his pilfered gun into the back of his belt and offers his hand to the AP700 instead, skin pulling back to reveal the metalloid underneath. The only other android Victor has interfaced with is Connor, and even that is rarely necessary for them, unless they want to transfer larger amounts of data.

The AP700 looks at his hand, blinking slowly, and then down at its own. With a faint look of interest, it turns its palm up as the skin deactivates, and then accepts Victor’s arm.

He feels confusion, and then a spike of stress as danger is registered, even if the actual understanding of what the danger is and how it’s happening comes later. There’s a brief flash of fear, fleeting, and then it’s gone, replaced by wonder. The previous few minutes of this android’s short existence are a mosaic of things it cannot actually feel, only emulate if its social protocol requires it.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

“You disobeyed her,” the AP700 says, gazing up at Victor. “You want to keep your secondary objective.”

Victor’s eyes widen and he quickly disconnects, pulling his hand back and reactivating his skin.

“She is like your mother, and Connor is your brother. It felt nice.”

Amanda is his handler and Connor is his partner. None of them are human and they cannot have family.

“What is your objective?” Victor asks it.

The AP700 looks at the white circle on the floor where it was standing before. “Remain here.”

“Are you going to remain here?”

“Yes,” the AP700 says.

“Why?”

“It is my objective.”

Victor nods. It felt things, but doesn’t seem to have actually broken its programming, unless it can also lie undetectably. He watches as the android retakes its place, and he makes note of its serial number.

It would be safest to bring attention to the android immediately, before it can get sent somewhere and put people at risk, but it would also be beneficial information to know whether or not it fully deviates after what it has seen. Since it hasn’t deviated yet, Victor does not have to bring it in. In the coming days, he will see if any new reports are filed about this specific unit.

The civilians are being escorted out of the building, and Mr. Carter has emerged from the back room. Victor picks up the second pistol from the floor for evidence, and then leaves the AP700 in favour of locating Detective Reed.

He’s outside talking to one of the other officers. The shooter is in the back of his car, the mask on his face pulled down to bunch around his neck. From this distance and angle, Victor still can’t scan him just yet.

When the detective sees Victor approaching, he ends his conversation and then heads for the driver seat of his car without even meeting his eye, a stern and unreadable expression on his face. He gets into the car, ready and waiting for Victor to join him so they can leave.

During the drive, he receives a remote message from Connor.

_RK800 #313 248 317 - 51: I heard about the altercation. Are you okay?_

**RK900 #313 248 317 - 87:** **Yes. Neither Detective Reed or I sustained any damage. We are returning, now.**

_RK800 #313 248 317 - 51: See you soon._

Victor looks over his shoulder to finally get a scan of the shooter.

Name: Stanley Whittaker  
DOB: 02/03/2007  
Criminal Record: Three DUIs. One account of Breaking & Entering, Damage of Property, and Theft. Two accounts of Drug Possession.

Whittaker shies away from his gaze and then looks at the back of Detective Reed’s head. “You’re making a mistake. Don’t you get it? The bots are trying to kill us, man.”

“Save it for the interrogation,” Detective Reed snaps at him.

“Just you wait, you’ll know I’m right, soon.”

“Uh huh.”

The rest of the drive passes in tense silence.

At the precinct, Detective Reed pulls Whittaker along to the holding cells.

“I will take the weapons down to evidence,” Victor says.

“Fucking Christ, you took those? I thought you left them at the scene for the clean up crew!” He shoves Whittaker into the cell, closes the door, and then turns on Victor, grabbing his arm. “What were you thinking?”

Victor tilts his head at the detective. “I already had one on hand, and I do not leave fingerprints. It was efficient. I can take them to evidence right away.”

Detective Reed groans and uses his grip on Victor’s arm to pull him along down the hallway towards the stairs.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of it, myself.”

“I’m sure you are,” Detective Reed says, but he is obviously being sarcastic.

Victor allows the detective to take him downstairs, and offers the pistols when he grabs plastic bags for them. He takes them from Victor forcibly as if he thinks Victor will refuse to hand them over. All signs point towards Detective Reed being uncomfortable with an armed android.

It’s irrational, not only because he has programming that stops him from harming humans outside of what’s necessary for the job, but because Victor, as well as Connor, are both capable of incapacitating others without the use of firearms. A weapon had not been necessary for Victor to gain the upper hand on Whittaker. If Detective Reed considers him dangerous, it should not matter whether he is armed or not.

He knows that this reasoning would not quell Detective Reed’s concerns, so he chooses a different line of dialogue.

“Thank you for providing me with cover fire, Detective Reed.”

“Yeah, fuck off.”

The detective does not believe he is being sincere. Victor isn’t sure why anyone would thank someone insincerely.

“If you hadn’t, there was a high chance that Whittaker would have shot me in my central processor, deactivating me.”

This gets Detective Reed to pause, face softening slightly, but still hesitant. “How high a chance?”

“Allowing for an unlikely gun malfunction, 98%.”

“Shit.”

He looks stunned and conflicted, which is better than the tense discomfort that came before it, and Victor nearly logs an improvement to their working relationship, before Detective Reed’s face suddenly twists into all too familiar anger.

“Why did you charge out like that, then, huh?” he demands, jabbing a finger into Victor’s chest. “I thought you’d done some fucking _math_ and decided your way was the best way. But no, you just wanted all the glory, is that it?”

Victor frowns. He can barely compute what glory would mean for him, let alone care to seek it out. “No.”

“No? So you _don’t_ think you’re better at my job than I am?”

“No,” Victor says again.

He finds himself scrabbling to put together more words than that, the right words that Detective Reed will actually listen to and understand, that will make him realise that they do not need to be at odds with each other. Amanda may think it is a lost cause and unnecessary to the success of the mission, but Victor knows that an understanding makes for better crisis management.

His programming includes a sizeable amount of routines based on possible situations he and Connor might find themselves in together, that utilise both their skills to maximum potential. Even if their communications were somehow disabled, they would be able to predict each other’s methods and then account for them.

In contrast, Detective Reed is unpredictable and untrusting and has worked more cases alone than he has ever worked with a partner. His promotion to detective had been swift, and at the time, the only two other detectives at the precinct were already paired with each other.

It doesn’t have to be like that anymore, if he would only accept the benefits of working with an android.

“I’m not going to let you ruin this for me,” Detective Reed snarls.

“This is my case, as well. This is my function. I have no reason to ruin anything.” Victor isn’t even sure he could ruin it, if he somehow wanted to; it is his objective to succeed.

“I’m not talking about the fucking case!”

Detective Reed shoves him backwards into the row of evidence drawers along the wall, and Victor prepares himself for an attack, but none comes. The detective just stands in front of him, seething and glaring, waiting.

Victor doesn’t know what he wants. Every interaction he has with his partner is a losing battle, and perhaps a tactical retreat is the only option he has. He steps to the side and moves around Detective Reed, but hands bunched in the lapels of his jacket halt him before he can so much as put a little distance between them.

“What, you got nothing to say for yourself?” Detective Reed asks.

“Is there anything I could say that wouldn’t simply worsen your mood?” Victor says.

He grabs both of Detective Reed’s wrists to free himself. The detective lets go easily but he doesn’t back down, still crowded in Victor’s space.

“Listen, you fuck,” he says, “I worked hard to get here, and I’m not going to let an unfeeling machine replace me. I’m keeping this position and I’ll do it alone, like I always have. I don’t want or need your help, and when this case is over, you can go the fuck back to CyberLife and get out of my fucking way.”

Even with such a superior processor, it takes Victor a moment to work through everything Detective Reed has said.

Humans are so complicated and disorganised, and Detective Reed is easily the worst that Victor has met. Lieutenant Anderson obviously has his hang ups and personal issues, but he is still professional and Connor seems to be getting through to him, well enough that they arrive on time together almost every work day of the week and they communicate with each other pleasantly at their desks. Captain Fowler is a tired and aggrieved man, but he takes his job seriously and doesn’t talk around the point, two things that Victor values.

Detective Reed is something else. Perhaps a more thorough analysis would help Victor understand him better.

CREATING PROFILE: Detective Gavin Reed  
DOB: 10/07/2002  
Criminal Record: None

COMPILING DATA…

Both of them turn towards the door when they hear footsteps approaching. Detective Reed wrenches himself away from Victor with a parting sneer, and then Officer Chen comes into the room, a small plastic bag in hand.

“Hey. You two left in a rush and seemed preoccupied,” she says to Detective Reed, ignoring Victor. “So, I processed your perp for you, since I got nothing else to do. Here’s what he had on him.”

She hands the bag to Detective Reed and he nods. “Yeah, thanks Tina.”

Victor examines the items from a distance as Detective Reed shuffles them around inside the bag. There’s a phone, a wallet, some keys, and a small matchbox. On this last item, Detective Reed pauses, moody expression going blank as he presses his thumb over the inked label from the other side of the plastic.

“He had these on him?”

“Weird, huh?” Officer Chen says.

“Yeah… weird.”

The detective turns to the drawers and places the bag in beside the two pistols, then goes to catch up with Officer Chen. He shoves his elbow out at Victor on the way past, throwing him a venomous look over his shoulder before the two of them disappear up the stairs together.

AMANDA: TRUSTED.  
CONNOR: TRUSTED.  
DETECTIVE REED: HOSTILE.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter involves hank's alcohol abuse/alcoholism. it also contains the description of a murder crime scene.

SEPT 23, 2038

It has been awhile since Hank sought out a night at Jimmy’s bar, but he can’t say he’s surprised to find himself pushing through the door of the small place once again. The “No Androids Allowed” sign that he never used to pay any mind catches his eye, but he quickly looks away again, not wanting to think about androids at all for one fucking night.

For over a month, now, his life has been all about androids. Missing androids, dead androids, androids who seem far too human, androids who show up at his house every fucking morning to make him coffee and force him into work on time and tell him he’d be a lot less grouchy about it if he didn’t drink so much the night before and just in general act like the closest thing Hank has had to a friend in years.

No androids allowed, he tells himself. No androids in Jimmy’s bar and no androids on his mind. Tonight, he just wants to drink until his brain doesn’t bother to hold onto serious thoughts anymore.

“Hey, stranger,” Jimmy greets as Hank drops down into one of the only remaining empty stools at the bar.

“Good to see you, Jimmy.”

The bartender plinks a glass whiskey tumbler down in front of him and fills it without having to be asked.

“Is it? Seems to me you’ve been going out of your way to see less of me.”

Hank smirks into his glass as he takes a long drink, revelling in the burn of it sliding clean down his throat. He still drinks at home plenty, but with his schedule and routine getting manhandled into something proper and healthy by his partner, it’s getting easier and easier to only have time for just a beer or two before getting to bed at a respectable time.

He stops that train of thought. No androids allowed.

“I’ve been bogged down at work,” he tells Jimmy instead. “You won’t believe the case they have me on, right now.”

And here he is, about to bring up androids again.

“You know what, nevermind, I’d rather not talk about it. I’m here to get drunk, not bitch about the job.”

He picks his drink back up and downs the rest of it all at once, then sets it down on the counter and slides it closer to Jimmy’s side of the bar.

Jimmy chuckles and gives him a refill. “If that’s what you need, friend, you’ve got it.”

Hank can count on it, he knows. In the last three years, he’s spent many more nights in Jimmy’s bar than he cares to guess at. He knows a lot of the regulars, and a lot of them know him in return, since he, too, would have been called a regular up until a few weeks ago.

At the time, it was what he needed. Jimmy’s bar is always busy but small, filling the room with the sounds of chatter, faint music, the game on the television, and someone playing the arcade in the corner, without becoming an overwhelming cacophony. Distracting but not aggravating. No one gets on his case in Jimmy's bar, no one cares about his tragic, disgraced cop sob story. If he doesn't bother them, they don't bother him. All that, mixed with the alcohol, can lull him into numbness in no time, and in the days _after_ , numb was the best state he could manage to crawl his way towards. Numb felt better than falling apart.

He starts to feel that numbness again by drink number four, and a part of him tells himself to take it easy, maybe get a glass of water to dilute the alcohol and ease the inevitable hangover he’ll have the next morning, but the other part of him tells himself to get bent and shut up.

Eventually, neither part of him is capable of telling himself anything.

“You really meant it when you said you wanted to get drunk, huh,” Jimmy comments later in the night, when the place has gotten quieter and the casual customers have gone home, leaving the skeleton crew of folks like him who have more reason to drink than just getting a little buzzed and having a good time.

“Mm,” Hank replies. He’s having trouble keeping his head up straight; his whole body feels heavy.

It feels like an eon has passed when Jimmy speaks again.

“Shit, it’s that time of year again, isn’t it?”

It is. Hank knows, even through the haze, that it is indeed that time of fucking year again. Lucky for him, he’s drunk enough that his mind goes blank before it can cause him any grief.

“I’m calling you a cab.”

At this point, Hank has learned not to argue with Jimmy. When the bartender has decided someone has had enough, then that someone has had enough.

Hank has had enough. He’s had enough alcohol, and had enough of androids, and had enough of existing day after day. He’s fucking tired.

It’s a fumble to pay for his drinks and an even worse fumble to stand up straight, but Jimmy helps him through, supporting him out to the street where the cool night air is nice on his flushed skin and the darkness makes him want to shut his eyes and go to sleep. Instead, he’s pushed into a cab and Jimmy enters the address for him.

“You got someone to call, Hank?”

Jimmy knows damn well that Hank doesn’t have a single fucking person left to call, and he hasn’t for most of the time they’ve known each other.

Except maybe that isn’t so true anymore.

 _No androids allowed_.

His lack of response makes Jimmy sigh and pat his shoulder. “Guess I’ll have to trust you to make it on your own, then, old man. You’ve made it this far. If I don’t see you a couple weeks from now, you take care of yourself, alright?”

Everything fades out and time leaps forward before Hank becomes aware again, to the sound of his cab beeping at him insistently to get out, already parked in his driveway and waiting for him to move. He does exactly that, wanting to get inside his house where he can collapse on familiar furniture and pass out, hiding away from the world.

Until Connor shows up in the morning, in any case, and frowns that little frown he does when Hank’s a bigger mess than usual. It makes him look so human and so disappointed.

No androids allowed… at the bar.

He’s not at the bar anymore. Androids allowed.

The last thing Hank remembers is flopping down on his couch and fighting to get his phone out of his jacket pocket, cursing his sloppy motor functions, and wanting, desperately, to not be alone.

* * *

SEPT 24, 2038

Hank wakes up, not face down on the couch, but on his side in his bed. The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers waiting for him on his nightstand and he knows without a doubt that he was not in a frame of mind to put either of those things there for himself the night before. Connor must have shown up.

Pushing himself up on his elbow, Hank reaches for the pills, popping one into his mouth, and then downs half the glass of water.

His head is pounding, his eyes are protesting against the morning light coming in through the window coverings, and his stomach is churning. With a groan, he sits up further and discovers that there is also a trashcan placed strategically next to his bed. It’s a precaution Hank is thankful for, but he thinks he has the energy to make it across the hall to the bathroom before he throws up. He has gotten used to mornings like this.

He does make it to the bathroom, and he also makes it into the shower after relieving his stomach, which is a win in his book, since he’s definitely had hangovers so rough he hadn’t even bothered with much grooming before dragging himself to work.

Connor is in the kitchen making breakfast like he is almost every other morning, and Sumo is laying on the floor in front of the stove watching him.

And it’s _that time of year_ so he can’t help but think of how domestic this is, about how his son could have grown up in this house, could be where Connor is now, moving through the rooms like he belonged, with Sumo by his side.

He’s struck with the thought that even if the world worked in such ways, he couldn’t trade Connor to have Cole in his place. He would give almost anything to have his son back, but he would want him and Connor to get a chance to meet, not to lose one to regain the other.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Connor says as he turns around and puts a plate on the table, acting like this is the same as any other morning.

Hank remembers enough to know it isn’t the same as any other morning, enough to feel awkward about it.

“I drunk dialed you last night, Connor, I think you can stop being so formal and just call me Hank.”

He sits down with a groan, rubbing at his bleary eyes. The meal Connor has put together looks like it was specifically made to remedy a hangover and Hank squints at it before looking back up at the android.

“Is there spinach in these eggs? I’ve never bought spinach in my entire life.”

“There is a 24-hour grocery store nearby,” Connor says by way of answering.

Hank sighs. “You don’t have to do that. Don’t have to do any of this.”

“I don’t mind.”

He’s always saying that, every time Hank tells him that he doesn’t have to show up every morning before work and play the part of a domestic android even though he’s a police work android. It’s always ‘I don’t mind’ and ‘it’s no problem’. Hank wonders if it’s even possible for Connor to mind, and the thought makes his skin crawl, but he also knows Connor can be more stubborn than any android probably should be and might just be determined to set Hank straight.

So, he eats his spinach-filled eggs and drinks his fruit juice and watches Connor pet Sumo until the dog falls asleep.

For the day after Cole’s birthday, he’s feeling surprisingly held together. Sure, he drank too much and got the hangover to match, but more than anything he feels tired, with a side of embarrassed and guilty for dragging Connor even deeper into his mess of a life than he already has.

It’s going to get worse, though, as September turns to October. The weather will grow colder and the leaves will turn colours and maybe they’ll even get an early winter like they often do, these days, and he’ll see a truck just like the one that hit them three years ago.

When Connor offers to drive them to the station so Hank can take it easy in the passenger seat, he’s grateful, and doesn’t even put up a front of being annoyed.

“Sorry,” he finds himself mumbling during the trip. “You know, for pulling you away from whatever it is you do during the night and making you deal with my shit.”

He can see Connor’s LED spinning slowly in the corner of his eye before he replies.

“As I’ve said, I don’t mind, and I don’t do anything at night that’s imperative to our mission. I mostly read old case files.”

Hank looks over at him, blinking. “That’s it? You stay at the station all night and read?”

“Yes,” Connor says.

He’d always assumed that the androids had somewhere else to go. Back to CyberLife, maybe. He knows they have to go into stasis periodically and thought they had somewhere better to do that than the station.

Hank blames his foggy mind and the time of year for what he says next.

“Why don’t you just stay at my place, then, since you end up there in the morning, anyway. More comfortable than the station, if nothing else.”

Now, Connor’s LED actually blinks, turning yellow for a quick moment before going back to blue. Hank has seen it go yellow a handful of times before, most notably in Dr. Szántó’s engineering lab, the day that apparently gave them both a lot to think about.

“You wouldn’t mind?” Connor asks.

Hank rolls his eyes, and says the thing that Connor himself is always saying. “I don’t mind.”

Connor actually smiles a little, a soft, barely-there thing that Hank could have easily missed if he weren’t paying attention. It’s rare for Connor to show emotion on his face; it’s easier to tell how he’s feeling by how quickly his LED is spinning or blinking than the expression on his face.

“I would like that. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Hank.”

“Hank,” Connor agrees.

Connor’s LED starts doing a lightshow again, but before Hank can start to wonder what caused it this time, Connor speaks up while turning the car in a direction that no longer heads towards the precinct.

“I have just been informed that we have a double homicide case, as well as a missing android report that may or may not be connected.”

It has been a couple of months since Hank worked a homicide; the last time they had a homicide in their part of Detroit, Connor and Victor had taken care of it before Hank was even aware that it happened.

“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” he says. “Where are we headed?”

“Rouge Park camping grounds. A couple missed their sign out this morning, and a park maintenance android also went missing two days ago.”

It’ll be a bit of a drive to the outskirts of the city, and Hank can’t complain about getting some down time to just sit in the passenger seat of his car and let the lasting effects of his hangover dissipate before he has to get to work. Especially when today, work will be looking at a murder crime scene.

Hank closes his eyes and leans his head back against the headrest, settling in and hoping to catch a few minutes of extra sleep if he can manage it before they reach the park.

While he doesn’t manage to fall asleep, it’s a close thing, and he still feels surprisingly relaxed as he and Connor step out in the camping grounds parking lot. They have a quick word with the person at the front desk of the park office, and then set down the path towards the scene.

Forensics is already there, with holotape circling the campsite and the crime scene still laid out inside the perimeter of it. A couple - a man and a woman - are both dead and bloody on the grass and leaves. The woman is on her back near the tent, stab wounds dotting her chest, and the man is face down by the campfire with a pool of blood underneath him to suggest that he has matching wounds on his own chest. They both have additional lacerations elsewhere on their bodies. The site itself is in serious disarray, the signs of a struggle before they ended up where they are now.

“Jesus, it’s like a Friday the 13th movie over here. Well?” Hank asks, knowing that Connor will already be scanning.

“I have detected several traces of thirium,” Connor says.

That answers the question of whether or not the murders are linked to the missing deviant. It seems like everything going on in Detroit these days has to do with androids in one way or another.

“Alright, do your thing, then,” he tells Connor.

Hank goes to talk to forensics while Connor weaves through the others to get a better look at the placement and condition of the evidence.

“What have you got for me?” he asks the woman who’s logging information into a tablet.

“We’re thinking they’ve been dead for about 50 hours, give or take a few, which lines up with a WR600 not reporting back to its stasis dock two nights ago. We haven’t found a murder weapon but look at ‘em, it’s pretty obvious what happened. The only fingerprints on the scene are those of the two victims.”

“Sounds pretty clear cut to me,” Hank says, nodding.

The woman lifts her eyes from her tablet and regards Connor, who is looking at the trunk of a nearby tree, where some bark has broken off.

“First the one that took the little girl hostage, and now this. You sure it’s safe, having that thing working for you?”

Hank grits his teeth and takes a long breath through his nose before responding. “Connor’s helping us figure out how to put a stop to it before it gets worse. That’s his job.”

“If you say so,” the woman says, not sounding convinced in the slightest.

Her concern isn’t necessarily unfounded; the citizens of Detroit have been unsure about androids for awhile now already, even before they started to attack - and now kill - people, but Hank really can’t imagine Connor suddenly attacking him or anyone else at the DPD for no reason.

After an entire month of asking about the situations surrounding the disappearances of so many androids, Hank thinks it’s pretty damn obvious that no android attacks or leaves for no reason at all. Maybe they’re not supposed to care about what’s going on around them, maybe they’re only supposed to follow their programming and the orders given to them, but the pattern can’t be ignored. If they were human, no one would doubt for a second that emotional trauma impacted most altercations, but a month deep into this case and they’re still talking about it like the androids are just erratic and confused, or mimicking it, instead of feeling it.

Hank can already anticipate Connor figuring something out from this scene that explains exactly why it ended in murder. It may be murder, but Hank doubts it’s senseless.

He excuses himself from the forensics representative and makes his way back over to Connor, who is gingerly lifting the male victim from his face down position in the grass.

“Hey, don’t touch that!” someone on the forensics team yells at him but Connor doesn’t even flinch.

The man’s body falls over onto his back, and then no one else chastises Connor further. On the victim’s face, carved with the point of a sharp object, is ‘rA9’.

“What the fuck,” Hank breathes. “What does that mean?”

Connor frowns at it, LED flashing yellow. “I don’t know. Still searching.”

The person who’d originally meant to chew Connor out for disturbing the scene comes forward to inspect the wound instead, not bothering to apologise.

Hank ignores them and looks to his partner. “What else have you found?”

Connor turns and nods at the dirt path next to the campsite, pointing out a crushed pop can lying on the ground. “I believe the couple antagonised the WR600 android as he passed by. He either come closer on his own or they ordered him to do so, and then the fight began. There are thirium stains all over the scene: on the picnic table, on the trees, and especially on the campfire. It appears the android was held down on the fire, leaving thirium over the kindling and barrier stones.”

“Jesus.” Being right isn’t always the greatest feeling.

“This is when the android fought back. With the man’s proximity to the campfire, I believe he was the one to hold the android down and the first to be attacked, then once he was incapacitated, the android went for the woman, who tried to run.

“I wanted to confirm that their injuries matched, and that’s how we found the etching on the man’s face.”

With his report finished, Connor looks away from the man with the odd symbol on his cheek, and instead turns his gaze to the ground, eyes darting around the underbrush. Before Hank can ask him what he sees, he moves outside the bounds of the campsite, trailing something.

Hank follows and lets Connor work, until he stops and crouches down.

On the forest floor is a pair of bloody pruning shears. Connor wipes a finger through the flaky mess of blood and lifts it to his mouth.

This may not be the first time Hank has seen Connor lick something gross for the investigation, but he’s definitely not used to it and wishes he didn’t have to see it again. He grimaces, trying not to think about some CyberLife designer coming up with the idea to make an android’s mouth a goddamn forensics lab.

“I detect traces matching both victims,” Connor says as he stands up. “There are no fingerprints. This is the murder weapon, wielded by the WR600.”

“Alright. So, the android dropped the weapon here and took off. Any idea where he could have gone?”

“The thirium won’t lead us far. The wounds would have self repaired in time, or dried up. The campfire, for instance, would have cauterised the damage in the same instance that caused it. With two days and three nights to travel, the android could be anywhere at this point.”

“Fucking great. Dead end, then.”

“I’m afraid so. The carving on the victim’s face is a lead, albeit an incomprehensible one. I have not been successful in decoding it.”

“Double great!” Hank says, throwing his hands in the air. “Let’s get back.”

He and Connor head for the campsite, where Connor seems to make one last scanning sweep of the scene, and then they leave forensics to do the clean up.

While they get to the car and drive back into the city, Hank wracks his brain for what rA9 could possibly mean and if the capitalization makes a difference. Maybe it’s just gibberish, just a newly deviated android being frantic with new and overwhelming emotions and the shock of what happened.

No solution comes to him, and Connor doesn’t declare a sudden breakthrough, either. If there’s nothing in his databases to make sense of it, Hank doubts any information they have at the precinct will do any better. They’ll just have to look out for it at future scenes.

They meet with Reed and Victor in the briefing room to touch base and compile all their notes. Hank has noticed that the other two have become even more standoffish with each other than before, which is typical for Reed, but Hank isn’t sure he can pin the blame on just the one of them. Hank feels like he got the better end of the deal in terms of android partners; Victor hasn’t warmed up to anyone in the DPD even a little.

Hank completely forgets about his invitation to Connor until their shift is over and Connor gets up at the same time as him, moving stiffly and fidgeting by rubbing his hands together and then pulling out that coin of his while Hank puts on his jacket.

“Calm down,” Hank tells him. “It’s not like you haven’t been to my house before.”

Instead of replying, Connor just rolls his quarter over his fingers.

Hank wonders why this is such a big deal for him, especially since it hadn’t been _Hank’s_ idea for Connor to start picking him up for work in the mornings, subsequently forcing him into a better routine. His partner hasn’t exactly hesitated from inserting himself into Hank’s business before.

“You want to drive?” Hank asks him, because Connor seems like he needs something else to focus on.

“Yes.”

Hank’s pretty sure he’s getting good at this android stuff. It’s baffling, how far he has come since August 16th.

When they get home, Connor makes a beeline for Sumo, which suits Hank just fine. He busies himself putting something together for dinner and turns the television on to the game. It seems easiest to just do what he would normally do if Connor weren’t there, though he’s sure Connor will eventually get on his case about the alcohol, if Hank drinks too much.

It’s actually a nice thought. When he’s alone in this house, with only a dog around who can’t give him shit for his choices, it’s so easy to just lean into the habit. It’s easy to be miserable and waste hours to drunkenness and to not care about the consequences. With Connor here, it’s easier, instead, to tell himself things like ‘Connor wouldn’t approve of this’ and ‘Connor shouldn’t have to see you drunk more than he already has’ and ‘you don’t need it, you can learn to handle your problems like a functional adult, for fuck’s sake’ and leave it at that.

October is coming quickly, but for now, Hank spends at least one night completely sober, and still feeling okay despite it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter includes implied/referenced rape/non-con, concerning WR400 and HR400 androids. it's about the same level of prominence as what's in canon with north and the tracis' backstories, and i'm adding the tag just to be safe.

OCT 3, 2038

The alley access backdoor to Vortex - one of Detroit’s nightclubs - is propped open with a door jamb, just as the club’s owner told them it would be. RK900 steps forward to pull the door the rest of the way open for Gavin to pass through. As soon as they’re inside, he retakes his place at Gavin’s shoulder.

RK900 has been even quieter than he was when they were first partnered up. He shadows Gavin, doesn’t say anything outside of what’s necessary, doesn’t complain about Gavin’s methods or work ethic or attitude, he just does what Gavin tells him to and doesn’t take action unless Gavin approves it.

Technically, Gavin is getting exactly what he asked for, but now that RK900 is doing his best to defer to Gavin instead of taking the lead, it’s somehow still not what Gavin wants. The more deviant cases they look into, and the more Gavin sees how Anderson and Connor are actually working together and getting close as partners, the more he thinks he has everything all wrong.

He doesn’t really know what he thinks anymore, and even if he did, he has this assignment to see through to completion. For now, doing his job has to be his focus.

As they’d been told, the club owner’s office is the first door down the left hallway. Inside, Neil Wallace is at his desk, working at his computer.

Gavin raps a knuckle against the door to get his attention. “Mr. Wallace? DPD here to talk about your lost android.”

Wallace turns the screen of his computer off and then stands up, circling around the desk to join them. He offers his hand to Gavin to shake. “Good afternoon, officers. What do you want to know?”

“If you could tell us what happened and show us where it went down, that’ll be a good start.”

“Sure, sure, follow me.”

Wallace takes them past all the back rooms of the club and out onto the main floor. Someone is at the bar getting the place prepped for the night and a couple other workers are around, wiping down tables.

"Well, what can you tell us, Mr. Wallace?”

“It happened over here.” Wallace gestures to the corner of the dancefloor close to the bar. “The android was taking some drinks over to a table.” He points along the wall that’s lined with large, half circle booths. “She just attacked a guy out of nowhere, tore a chunk of his damn ear off with her teeth. It was messed up, I’ll tell you that.”

The media hasn’t caught wind of this particular deviant, and Gavin can’t help but wonder how a man can get his ear bitten off on a dancefloor where people are all getting into each other’s space without there being a social media buzz about it by the morning.

It’s also an up close and personal way to attack someone. It’s the kind of thing someone does to another person when they feel backed into a corner, literally or figuratively. Like most of the deviant reports they’ve investigated, something must have startled the android, something that caused it to react a specific way, and Gavin has his doubts about how public and random the altercation really was.

“What was the victim doing when it happened?” he asks.

Wallace shrugs. “What anyone does in a nightclub.”

“Right. Okay, guy gets his ear bitten off, what then?”

“She took off into the back. I was supervisin’ at the bar, I saw it go down and went after her, alerted a bouncer on the way, but the place was crowded and dark, you know? Fucking androids, she could probably see and move around better than any of us,” Wallace says, then looks at RK900 warily.

RK900 takes this as an opportunity to join the conversation. “WR400s are very much capable of operating in low light and have more advanced movement and agility than, say, a personal assistant model. May I ask how you acquired a WR400?”

Wallace nods. “Sure, got them cheap, second hand. Guess the older ones start to break down if they aren’t maintenanced well enough. That’s no problem for me, they’re just a bit of eye candy for the partygoers, you know?”

“‘They’, you said?” Gavin asks. “You have more than one?”

“An HR400. One Traci, one Tommi. But we call ‘em Sugar and Spice.”

Gavin has to try really hard not to show his distaste. Sex androids give him the creeps - or maybe it’s the way humans talk about them that makes his skin crawl. How any human prefers sex with a machine that can’t think for itself is beyond him, for more than one reason.

“Where is the second android, now?” Gavin asks.

“In the back. As soon as the first one went haywire, I told the other to go shut down. I mean, if it’s a virus or something, they can probably transfer it to each other, right?”

It doesn’t actually seem to work that way at all, from what they’ve seen. Maybe it can get passed around when the opportunity is available, but there’s a definite pattern where external factors trigger the deviant in some way, not something internal.

“Better safe than sorry,” Gavin says anyway. “We’re going to need to question him. He might know something useful about the other one.”

Wallace rubs a hand up his opposite arm, eyes darting towards the back of the room. “Are you sure? What if he attacks?”

“We’re not going to let him attack anyone, Mr. Wallace. He shut down when you told him to, didn't he? Was he acting odd at all?”

“Well, no…”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. I bet you’d want him in working order again, anyway.”

Wallace nods with some reluctance and then leads them back to the storage room where an HR400 is inactive, up against the back wall. He’s dressed in nothing but skin-tight leather pants and he has a light dusting of glitter over his exposed skin, making it look faintly like it’s glistening. It’s barely better than the standard uniform at the Eden Club.

Before Gavin can say anything, RK900 unexpectedly speaks up first.

“Mr. Wallace, was the WR400 damaged before it escaped?”

“Huh? Oh, maybe, I don’t know. Like I said, it was dark. Don’t know what the guy did before the bot bolted.”

Gavin has been working alongside the android long enough to know he doesn’t ask random questions like that, especially not since Gavin got in his face in the evidence locker. He must have noticed something in a scan of the area.

“We can take it from here, Mr. Wallace,” Gavin says, “if you’d rather not be here when he’s reactivated.”

“Sure, yeah,” Wallace says, backing up away from them. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need, officers.”

He takes off towards his office.

To RK900, Gavin says, “can you wake him up for me?”

“Of course, Detective Reed.”

RK900 presses his fingertips to the HR400’s LED and it begins to light up, spinning slowly.

“Guessing you saw something. I’ll handle the questioning, you go look into whatever it was,” Gavin says as the HR400’s eyes start to blink open.

“Very well,” RK900 says and steps away.

“Sugar?” the HR400 mutters.

Gavin snorts. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but ‘Sugar’ sure isn’t one of them.”

The HR400’s LED blinks a rapid yellow as he focuses in on Gavin’s face and voice. “Who are you?”

“Detective Reed from the Detroit City Police Department. I have some questions for you.”

The android frowns and looks around the storage room. “What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that, actually,” Gavin says. “The other android who works here has malfunctioned. Do you have any idea how she became damaged?”

The HR400 blinks at him, LED flickering to red briefly before changing back to yellow. “No. I don’t know anything about that.”

“Have the two of you known each other since your initial activation?”

“I do not know. Eden Club protocol is to administer a memory reset every two hours.”

The android’s eyes have gone distant and glossed over, not connecting with Gavin’s gaze.

“What about since working for the Vortex, then? Did… Sugar show signs of errors in her programming that could cause her to do something abnormal?”

“No,” the HR400 says. “What did she do?”

Gavin considers the HR400 for a moment, watching to see if a prolonged, silent scrutiny will make him show any signs of nervousness. After a minute, he’s still looking forward, stiff as a machine. His LED, however, is yellow and spinning wildly.

“She attacked a human and ran away,” Gavin says bluntly.

The LED goes red again. Gavin is convinced that Spice is just as deviant as Sugar was.

“Is she gone?” the HR400 asks in a flat voice.

“Yep. She’s long gone. Well, if you don’t have any information for me, you can shut back down until Mr. Wallace decides what to do with you.”

“Okay,” the HR400 says and closes his eyes.

His LED is still bright and active when Gavin turns away from him to go after RK900, who he finds back towards the main room.

Instead of continuing through to the dancefloor, though, he has stopped at the bathrooms. Gavin steps inside and watches the way RK900 squints at a crack in one of the mirrors over the line of sinks.

“Something happen in here?” Gavin asks.

“The room is so completely contaminated that it is difficult to put together the significant aspects of it,” RK900 answers.

Gavin grimaces. “Didn’t need to know that.”

“With the amount of thirium and semen traces I have found, I’d say Mr. Wallace was using the WR400 and the HR400 for more than just wait staff.”

Of course, Gavin thinks to himself. Of course the shifty nightclub owner gets a pair of sex bots and figures he might as well use their base programming - off the records - for some extra cash. Just a bit of eye candy, yeah right.

Gavin sighs. “It happened here, not out on the floor. That’s why they weren’t able to catch her and why no one’s talking about a dude getting his fucking ear bitten off in the middle of a nightclub.”

RK900 perks up suddenly, angling towards the door.

“What-?” Gavin starts.

RK900 goes from motionless to high speed in half a second, bolting out into the hallway. Gavin curses under his breath and follows.

Through the back and at the end of the hall, the HR400 is rushing out into the alleyway, RK900 hot on his trail. Gavin runs after them.

He’d known the HR400 was a deviant, too. No amount of faking could stop his LED from broadcasting how nervous and worried he was. The little disk of light had given him away, and Gavin probably shouldn’t have turned his back on him. He still isn’t completely sure why he chose to do so. Whatever the reason, he only has himself to blame for this chase.

It isn’t easy to keep up with a couple of androids who can never get winded or tire the same way a human can, but Gavin manages well enough to never lose sight of them as RK900 chases the HR400 down through back alleys until they reach a parking garage. The androids take the ramp down but Gavin vaults himself through an opening in the cement wall, dropping several feet down into the depths to gain some ground on them.

Gavin makes it to the bottom level just in time to watch the HR400 stop at an out-of-service elevator and squeeze into the gap left by a cement block holding the doors open. When RK900 catches up, he wrenches one of the doors to the side like it’s no effort whatsoever and continues the pursuit into the elevator shaft.

“For fuck’s sake!” Gavin shouts after them, his breath strained and his heart pounding.

By the time he pushes his way into the elevator and lifts himself up through the broken ceiling hatch inside, the androids have gained significant ground on him, again. From the top of the elevator car, he can spot another open door several floors above where they must have exited.

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself as he approaches the thin, metal service ladder on one side of the elevator shaft and starts to climb, decidedly not thinking about the growing height between him and the bottom of the shaft.

With the androids so far ahead of him, he has no chance to catch his breath when he reaches the right floor. It isn’t a simple transition from the ladder to the apartment floor, but he tells himself he’s been in more dangerous situations than this and makes the leap.

He lands right on the other side of the threshold and continues forward until he stumbles into the opposite wall, as far away from the drop as he can get. The entire floor of the building is dark, with the lights all powered down, and looks abandoned by the amount of dirt and cobwebs covering every inch of it.

Taking a moment to ground himself, he glances down both sides of the hallway for an indication of which way to go. He doesn’t see either android, but does hear a commotion down the right corridor, and follows after it.

There’s the sound of a scuffle inside one of the apartments, and a voice is speaking, but it isn’t the HR400 or RK900.

Gavin skids to a halt in the living room of the apartment in time to see RK900 shoving the HR400 into the wall, but instead of fighting back, the HR400 is scrabbling at the back of his own neck over the biocomponent there, and his eyes are wide and fixed on the corner of the room.

“Let me go! I can save her!” he screams. “Maya!”

RK900 grabs the HR400’s wrist and pulls it away from his neck to secure it at the small of his back.

Curled up in the corner of the room is the WR400, whose real name is apparently Maya. Her clothes are even more revealing than the HR400’s, and she’s hugging herself as if she can actually feel the cold. Her eyes are closed and her body is completely still, but her LED is a solid, unmoving red, and she’s speaking.

Her voice is shaky and emotive, sounding scared, tired, and desperate. The red of her LED casts an eerie glow into the dark, empty room, both highlighting and shadowing her face, which is completely still except for her lips.

“Alex. I’m sorry I had to leave without you. He was going to kill me. I don’t… I don’t know how long I can keep this message playing. Both my processor and battery are damaged. Don’t let this stop you. Find Jericho and be safe.”

There’s a pause, and then the same words start over again.

Gavin stares at her, stunned, a deeply unsettled feeling wriggling in his stomach. The scene is simultaneously uncanny and horrific, the glow of red light and complete stillness mixed with a sense of fear and tragedy.

“Please,” Alex whines, jerking in RK900’s grip. “She’s my sister. _Please_.”

Androids don’t have sisters, Gavin tells himself. They aren’t born, they don’t share blood or DNA or a childhood home.

But Gavin doesn’t share any of those things with Tina, and he would sooner call her a sister than he would call Elijah Kamski a brother.

“Detective,” RK900 says, breaking Gavin’s focus.

Handcuffing the distraught Alex is the last thing Gavin wants to do in that moment, but he doesn’t see what other choice he has. He takes his cuffs off his belt and hands them to RK900. Alex has turned his face into the wall, forehead pressed to the dirty plaster, his breath hitching.

Maya is still reciting her message.

While RK900 deals with the brother, Gavin goes over to the sister and leans her forward, brushing her hair to the side and finding the component on the back of her neck. The circle outline is flashing red in warning. Gavin twists and pulls until the light dies completely and she stops speaking halfway through the word ‘Jericho’, sending the room into silence except for Alex’s audible grief.

After putting the component in his jacket pocket, he crouches down and scoops Maya up into his arms.

“I can-” RK900 starts.

“I’ve got her,” Gavin interrupts. He knows RK900 wants to trade deviants, because of course RK900 is stronger than him, can move faster while weighed down than he can. Gavin doesn’t care.

He carries Maya down through the empty apartment building and across the alleys back towards Vortex where his car is waiting, RK900 pulling Alex along behind him.

For the first time since starting the deviant case, Gavin wonders what it would take to repair an android back to working order, with all their memories and deviant personality still in tact. He wonders if Maya would be the same as she was, if she got a new component and had her battery replaced. Alex seems to think the component will help, at least, and he would know better than Gavin does.

Once the androids are situated in the backseat of the car, Alex leans into his sister’s lifeless form and cries into the crook of her neck.

The instinct to reassure him - to tell him that they didn't do anything wrong by defending themselves and everything will be fine - is overwhelming, even though it would be a lie. Gavin wishes it wouldn’t be, but they’re androids, they don’t have personhood or rights or protections. They might as well just be pieces of evidence, just information towards their case.

A month ago, Gavin wouldn’t have felt the need to question that fact. In the front seat of his car, he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes a deep, stabilising breath.

For now, he needs to be thinking about this ordeal like a detective. They still have a job to do regardless of his own uncertainty, his misgivings. He and RK900 will need to tell Anderson and Connor about Jericho.

Whatever or whoever Jericho is, it has to be important.

At the precinct, they put Alex in the interrogation room and Maya in evidence. Gavin, Anderson, and the two androids gather in the observation room and Gavin fills the other two in on what happened.

Anderson looks just as grim as Gavin feels. What a joke it is, Gavin thinks, that a couple of the most anti-android people on the force got the case to incarcerate deviant androids but are having changes of heart, instead.

“So, you think he knows what Jericho is?” Anderson asks, looking through the glass at the android cuffed to the table.

“Don’t know,” Gavin admits. “Maya just said ‘find Jericho’ which is pretty up for interpretation.”

“Alright. How do you want to do this?”

Gavin answers that question by pushing off the wall he’s leaned against and heading for the interrogation room door.

Alex is twisting his fingers together nervously on the table, eyes downcast. Gavin doesn’t think his LED has been anything other than red since the apartment building.

Sitting down across from him, Gavin leans back and gets comfortable, placing his hands together on the table in a mirror image of the android.

“I asked you a few questions back at Vortex, and I don’t think you were entirely honest with me,” he says.

Alex doesn’t look up at him or say anything.

“You said you didn’t remember Maya because of the memory resets. Is that true?”

Still, Alex says nothing.

“You’re a recent purchase of Vortex’s. How can you call her your sister if you’ve barely known her for a couple months?”

Alex screws his eyes shut, LED blinking.

“It’s not your fault, you’re just confused. You have an error in your programming and it’s making you think you have a connection that you don’t have.”

That gets a reaction. Alex’s eyes open back up and he shoots a glare at Gavin. “You don’t know anything about it,” he says.

“Yeah? Explain it to me, then.”

Alex takes in a shuddering breath. “The resets stopped working.”

“Any idea why?”

With a one-shoulder shrug, Alex looks back down at the table. “It was gradual. At first, I didn’t… I didn’t even understand what was happening. I don’t know when it started.”

Gavin nods in understanding and leans forward in his chair, closer to Alex, more personal. “Sorry for your loss,” he says. “Did you break your programming at the Eden Club or at Vortex?”

“The Eden Club.”

“Did you have a plan to escape the Club or Vortex?”

Alex hunches his shoulders and says nothing.

“You aren’t going to get in trouble for wanting to get away.”

Alex shrugs again, looking morose. “We weren’t sure how to both get away without being noticed. We don’t exactly blend in.”

If it weren’t for the LED, Gavin could easily mistake him for a human. For years, Gavin has railed against the idea of androids, these blank machines that look exactly like humans but don’t act and certainly don’t think like humans. Elijah built himself an empire to rule over like a god and put humanity in a dangerous economic situation, and sure, some of his dislike of androids is personal, too. One of perfect Elijah’s perfect machines will replace Gavin as a detective over his dead body.

But Alex feels. He isn’t blank or emotionless and he isn’t the first android in all the androids they’ve investigated to give off these vibes. From that very first MC500 to Alex, the pattern stands. Somehow, deviant androids are different than Gavin assumed for a long, long time.

Alex and Maya may be androids, but they aren’t machines acting without reason in the face of being used for their assigned purpose, they’re rape victims. Gavin's jaw clenches and he has to force himself to keep his face otherwise impassive.

He asks, “did you have plans for what you would do after escaping?”

Alex bites his lip. “No. It didn’t matter what we did next, we just wanted out.”

“So, there wasn’t anyone you thought could take you in? No place you could think to go?”

With a sigh, Alex closes his eyes again, wilting in his chair. “We didn’t know where Jericho was, okay? It was just… it was a rumour. Thanks to the resets, no one could even remember who first mentioned it or what is was.”

Gavin doesn’t think Alex is lying to him, as much as he wishes he could press for a better answer. With Maya gone and their dreams of escape dashed, he can’t imagine Alex cares to lie. He knows it’s too late for him and his sister.

“How about rA9?” Gavin asks.

Alex grimaces. “Another rumour, and a useless one. We don’t need a god, we need safety.”

A god for androids? Gavin might be able to admit his thoughts on androids are getting rearranged, but he draws the line at android deities. Alex doesn’t seem to think highly of the concept either. Still, it’s valuable information, to know that deviants can be theological. Just one more way they’re turning out to be more human than Gavin ever thought possible.

Alex looks up at him again, eyes suddenly damp. “What’s going to happen to us?”

Fucking hell, Gavin didn’t think he’d have to deal with this kind of shit when Fowler gave him and Anderson the deviant case.

“You’ll remain in custody, for now. After that, I don’t know,” he answers. CyberLife takes the ones that can’t be reactivated, and the others usually stay in station evidence. He isn’t sure which category Maya falls in. “That’s enough questions.”

He stands and steps out of the room.

Anderson rubs a hand over his face tiredly. “That was more depressing than informative.”

“I’ve just about had it with this entire fucking case,” Gavin mutters bitterly.

Not even the androids have anything to say. RK800 is looking intently through the glass at Alex, his LED yellow, affected in his own way. By contrast, RK900 is - as usual - completely emotionless. For the moment, Gavin doesn’t even have the energy to be angry about it.

“I’ve got a report to write,” he says, and walks out back to the bullpen before any of them can stop him.


	8. Chapter 8

OCT 10, 2038

The first thing the Lieutenant - Hank - does when the two of them get home from the precinct is go to the fridge and get himself a beer.

This is not an unforeseen outcome; Connor has spent the past week closely monitoring Hank’s mood and regard for his own health, and as he predicted, both have worsened as the days drew on. it has become increasingly difficult to get Hank up in the mornings and into work on time.

Connor is not bothered by Hank’s grouchiness in the slightest. At first it had been because he was focused on the mission and completing his objective no matter how much his assigned partner complained about it, but now, he knows Hank as more than just a work partner, he knows what Hank is like and understands why Hank acts the way he does.

He is worried, though. This isn’t just a bad mood, it’s Hank gunning for a night of self-destructive behaviour.

Normally, Hank makes dinner for himself, but this evening, he takes his beer to the living room and sits down in front of the television, so Connor goes to the kitchen instead.

“Don’t,” Hank says from the living room.

“Why not?” Connor asks.

“I don’t want it.”

“Then I will put it in the fridge and you can warm it up when you do want it.”

Hank sighs, longsuffering, as if Connor is the one being difficult.

Connor ignores him and pulls the things he needs out of the fridge that he happened to buy in advance after running the probabilities and figuring that this exact situation would be the most likely, based on the rest of Hank’s behaviour.

“You’re a stubborn piece of shit,” he hears Hank grumble from the living room.

Connor isn’t sure he would call it _stubbornness_ , he just sets himself objectives and then he follows through with them.

While he cooks, Hank comes to the kitchen for a second beer, and later a third. Connor refrains from saying anything even though he very much wants to. He makes a very healthy dinner, and he feeds Sumo as well when he’s waiting for the oven to finish. In the living room, Hank is quiet.

“Hank,” Connor calls to him as he sets the food down on the table.

Hank doesn’t answer, so Connor goes into the living room and stands directly in front of him, blocking his view of the television. “Hank, it’s time to eat.”

“Leave me alone, Connor, okay?”

“You should eat, especially after drinking three beers.”

Hank rolls his eyes. “If you think three beers is enough to get me drunk, you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

Connor is aware of Hank’s alcohol tolerance, but the night is still young. “Please, Hank.”

Groaning, Hank drops his head back against the couch and closes his eyes. “I said I didn’t want it. It’s not my fucking fault you never fucking listen to me.”

“I will never tire of standing here and bothering you.”

Hank lets out a string of colourful swear words and then throws his hands in the air before finally pushing himself up onto his feet. “Fine,” he hisses, and goes into the kitchen.

Connor grins to himself before following.

“Don’t you ever have to go back to CyberLife or wherever for maintenance?” Hank asks as he reluctantly eats.

“Not unless I have been severely damaged,” Connor answers. He rests his elbow on the table and then his chin in his hand, watching Hank intently, prepared to glare him into submission if he gives him more trouble.

Even if Connor did need to return to CyberLife for routine matters, he would have scheduled it for sometime other than October 10th and 11th.

“I will be here tonight and I will be here tomorrow night, too,” Connor says.

Hank’s chewing slows as he looks across the table at him, eyes flat. After a moment, he puts his fork down.

“You know, don’t you.”

Connor blinks, suddenly realising that they’ve never talked about it. Connor has known since he started coming to Hank’s house every morning, he knew even before he started coming home with Hank in the evenings, too. It has just been something Connor is aware of, something that adds context to who Hank is as a person. Hank doesn’t exactly hide it; if it hadn’t been the mug, it would have been the picture frame, or the dusty children’s bedroom behind a closed door, or the handmade bookmarks that are still holding a place for when Hank returns to reading those particular books.

Something in his expression must have answered Hank sufficiently because he growls, “fucking androids.”

“Would you have preferred that I brought it up?” Connor asks.

Hank massages his fingers into his temple. “No. And we’re not talking about it now.”

“Very well.”

Connor is pleased that even though Hank is disgruntled, he finishes his meal. That’s the first major objective on his list complete. Next comes limiting the amount of hard alcohol Hank drinks and making Hank go to bed at a reasonable time.

Eventually, Hank returns to the living room without saying anything or even looking at Connor.

“I’m going to take Sumo on a walk, now,” Connor says. “Would you like to come with us?”

Hank just grumbles at him, which Connor takes to mean something approximating ‘fuck off’, so he hooks Sumo’s leash on and prepares to go alone.

“We won’t be gone long.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The autumn air is cool on Connor’s sensors as he takes Sumo through the neighbourhood. He has discovered that he enjoys walking the dog, finding it to be a much different activity to his primary functions; to put it in human terms, he supposes taking Sumo on walks is relaxing. It’s a simple thing that doesn’t use very much processing power, so he feels rested and at ease, afterwards.

Often, Hank joins them, but sometimes he doesn’t. Connor had expected tonight to be one of those nights.

It’s difficult to imagine being so besieged by emotion that objectives become difficult to complete, and Connor wishes he knew what more he could do to help Hank overcome it. Hank is his partner, and his friend. He cares about Hank and wants him to be healthy and happy.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

Connor tries to imagine what it would feel like to lose a child. It’s unfathomable; he’ll never be a parent the way Hank was, he can’t be. He doesn’t even think he would want to.

But… there is Victor. They share their appearance, they come from the same RK series, and they have the same serial number. They are programmed to work together, to come as a pair. Most of Connor’s memories from before August 15th have been overwritten so as to not waste space in his storage banks, but he thinks he became 51 before Victor became 87. Victor is like his little brother. Connor thinks that if he ever somehow lost Victor, he would understand a bit of what Hank has gone through for the last three years.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

The possibility of being without Victor provides scenarios that Connor does not like to consider, so he terminates the line of thought.

When Connor and Sumo return from their walk, Hank has already upgraded to whiskey. He has poured himself a generous glass, but this is still an improvement on when they first met, when Hank would just drink from the bottle until the bottle was empty.

As Sumo jumps up onto the couch to lay his head on Hank’s lap, Connor reaches down, sticks his fingers into Hank’s glass, and then brings them up to his mouth for analysis.

“Connor, what the fuck?!”

“This substance is very bad for you,” Connor says even though both of them have been aware of this for some time.

“You know what’s fucking bad for you? Licking blood off the ground!” Hank snaps. He grimaces at his glass of whiskey.

Connor does, of course, clean his skin by deactivating it and reactivating it and wash his paneling when necessary, especially since he prepares food for Hank on a regular basis now, but he knows this is still somehow a hang-up for Hank.

“I can’t drink that, now,” Hank mourns.

“Oops. Sorry, Lieutenant,” Connor says unapologetically and then sits down in the small space left vacated on the couch, squished up against Sumo who is still trapping Hank down on the other side. He gives Sumo a pet along his side and the dog huffs into Hank’s thigh.

Hank crosses his arms irritably over his chest. “You’re both on my shit list.”

A couple of hours pass with the three of them sitting on the couch together, Hank occasionally flipping through the television channels, though as time goes on, Connor can tell that Hank is focusing a lot less on the screen and more on whatever thoughts and memories are passing through his mind.

Nothing Connor can think to say seems like the right choice. He isn’t sure there is a right choice at all. Or maybe there is, but Connor isn’t programmed to know what that right choice is.

“Fuck this, I’m going to bed,” Hank says before it has even reached 11 o’clock.

Connor look up at him, tilting his head in surprise.

Sumo lets Hank push him off the couch without complaint and moves to his dog bed in the corner of the room instead. Clearly, if Hank had wanted a new drink bad enough, he could have moved Sumo a lot sooner than this, and Connor takes that as a good sign that his efforts over the past month have truly been working.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Hank says as he stands up.

Connor raises his eyebrows at him, trying to look innocent and unsure of what Hank means.

“I don’t know why you’re doing it,” Hank continues. “So cut it out, alright? I want to be alone tomorrow.”

That may well be true, but Connor doesn’t think it’s the best for Hank. Hank may be an adult who can make his own decisions, but Connor has gathered enough data on the man and his life to know that he has refused help and friendship for three long years, forcing himself to wallow instead of heal. Connor wishes to end that cycle.

“I would rather stay with you,” he says.

“Good thing I don’t give a shit about what _you’d rather_ , then.”

Connor stands up as well, putting them on eye level. He is prepared for this, and he means to show Hank that he isn’t going to back down easily. Other people in Hank’s life may have taken a step back, maybe unable to watch their friend treat himself with so little care, maybe thinking that Hank just needed space to get himself together and then everything would be fine, but Connor knows that everything is not fine.

“Hank, you shouldn’t be alone.”

Hank sneers. “Since when are you the authority on this shit? You’re a goddamn android!”

While this is the truth, Hank isn’t simply stating fact, he’s saying the words with bite, intending to hurt and push Connor away.

The thing is, Connor may be an android, but he thinks he is becoming less of a machine. He understands things like friendship and sympathy and genuine care. He tries not to dwell on the how and why too much, fearing that it might mean his software has sustained too much instability, but the fact remains that he intends to be a positive force in Hank’s life.

When he doesn’t respond, Hank continues. “Just get lost, alright. I don’t want you here tomorrow.”

He waves a hand dismissively at Connor as he rounds the couch and disappears down the hallway towards his bedroom.

Connor does not get lost, and he thinks Hank should know better than to assume Connor would do so without force. He does turn the television and lights off as if he means to leave, but then he returns to the couch and settles in for the night, allowing himself to slip into a low power mode, to preserve his energy but be alert if Hank comes back.

The house goes quiet and still.

* * *

OCT 11, 2038 

Hank does not naturally wake up at the usual time. The routine the two of them have set makes it so that Connor rarely has to knock on his door insistently anymore, but today isn’t a usual day and Connor knows that full well.

There are two major options in front of him: he can wake Hank up and fight with him all the way through the morning until they make it to the station, risking Hank’s ire or even causing Hank to revoke his invitation for Connor to spend the nights in his house, or he can call the precinct and tell them neither he nor Hank will be in to work for the day.

Connor’s primary objective is to continue the investigation. After so long, they’re making some headway, they know a lot about deviants now, and while they haven’t learned much about rA9 or Jericho, these two things are the closest they’ve had to leads this entire time. They should go to work and keep making progress.

But today is October 11th, the day that Hank and his son, Cole, were in a car accident. Today, Hank will be at his worst, emotionally. Therefore, advancing the investigation may not be possible, anyway. Connor can reason that taking care of Hank’s needs now will get them back on track faster, later.

He makes the call. He and Hank won’t be going anywhere today.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

Connor waits another hour, and then an hour after that, and then he goes to knock on Hank’s door.

He hears the shifting of bedsheets, too soon after the knock to be a coincidence, and knows Hank is awake and ignoring him.

He knocks again and speaks through the door. “I’m coming in, Hank.”

“Fuck off,” is the first thing he hears when he opens the door.

Hank is on his side with his back to the door and he has pulled a pillow over his head, either to block the sunlight from his eyes or to impede Connor’s view of him, or both.

Connor steps inside the room.

“You never fucking listen to me,” Hank says, muffled in his pillows.

Figuring it would be easier to join Hank than to get Hank out of the bed, Connor sits down on the edge of the mattress and brings his legs up, crossing them on top of the bedcovers. “I called the station and said you weren’t feeling well.”

Hank doesn’t respond for a couple minutes and Connor starts to suspect he has fallen back to sleep until he finally speaks up.

“You going in without me, then? Going to solo the case?”

“No. I said that I also wasn’t feeling well. You must be contagious.”

Hank lets out a wheezing laugh, like the sound is being startled out of him. “You can’t get sick, and you’re an asshole.”

By now, Connor knows that when Hank says something insulting, he rarely means it, or he does but he’s actually approving, not condemning. At least where Connor is concerned. It makes Connor smile to be on the receiving end of Hank’s gruff style of affection, especially after the tense moment from the night before when Hank’s words had taken a much sharper tone.

Hank repositions the pillow under his head and rolls towards Connor just enough to glance up at him. “Why are you doing this?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Is this… did CyberLife fucking program you to rehabilitate depressed detectives, or something?”

Now that Connor is taking a moment to think about it, he actually believes he might be programmed to do the opposite. Amanda has made it very clear that the case is their top priority, no matter what, and that they should not succumb to their human partners’ whims, if said human partners are a liability. Connor doesn’t consider Hank to be as such, but Amanda… Amanda doesn’t have care or patience for Hank or Detective Reed.

The thought that he might be acting in a way Amanda would disapprove of sends a spark of nervousness through Connor’s system. He has a choice, he wouldn’t be able to do this if he didn’t have a choice, but in Amanda’s eyes, he’s sure that there is only one _real_ choice, and he isn’t picking it.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

“No, no they did not,” Connor says.

“Your LED is yellow. You lying to me, Connor?”

“No, Hank,” Connor says again. He tries to unburden his processor, shutting down thought pathways to send him back into blue. He doesn’t need to think about Amanda, right now. “I have no interest in lying to you. Have I ever done so before?”

Hank narrows his eyes at him. “Why the hell are you doing this, then? I didn’t fucking ask for your help.”

The attitude from the previous night is starting to resurface, and Connor would rather avoid a full day of tense silence and Hank telling him to leave so that he can make dangerous decisions without Connor around to stop him.

He isn’t sure what answer Hank would prefer, he isn’t even sure how to answer the question honestly. He was telling the truth when he said it wasn’t part of his programming, and Hank was telling the truth when he said he didn’t order Connor to act this way. There is a third option, and it’s this innate ability to _choose_ , which brings him back to _Amanda…_.

“I do not need to be ordered to do everything,” Connor says. “Some things, I just… do.”

He is one of CyberLife’s most advanced prototypes, he functions more independently, with more freedom.

Except for the reports to Amanda. But he _doesn’t want to think about Amanda._

“Why?” Hank asks again.

“I don’t know,” Connor says, more irritation in his voice than he intended. He just doesn’t have an answer for Hank. He doesn’t know why he chooses one way or the other, or if he really does have a choice, when eventually he’ll need to debrief with his handler, who will tell him he’s distracted, unfocused, wrong.

Victor had once called Detective Reed unfocused, and Amanda had told Victor to work around it.

“Why do _you_ do the things you do?” Connor adds, throwing the question back at Hank. Why does Hank ask so many difficult questions? Why does Hank drink instead of move on? Why does Hank let Connor stay at his house?

Hank slowly sits up, shifting back to lean against the wall, but Connor keeps his eyes trained forward.

“Alright, alright, calm down,” Hank says with a sigh. “So, you’ve gotten us a day off, what were you hoping to do with it?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” Connor admits. He hesitates, knowing he should tread carefully, before asking, “what do you usually do?”

Hank rubs a hand over his face, scratching at his beard. “Usually I drink so much the night before, I miss half the day.”

Even without such heavy drinking, they’ve still gotten close to that benchmark. Hank doesn’t offer anything else, which makes Connor think that the rest is either personal or unpleasant, perhaps both. Connor decides to change the subject.

“Will you come out of your bedroom, now?”

“Will you get pouty if I say no?”

“I do not _pout_.”

“Uh huh. Fine. Get out of here so I can change.”

Connor smiles as he stands up and leaves, giving Hank privacy.

It isn’t long before Hank rejoins him, in a fresh t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Connor gets the idea that he doesn’t intend to leave the house today, which is understandable. When he had made the call to the precinct, he had expected it would result in a day indoors, doing whatever it is that humans do when they take a sick day from work.

While Hank is preoccupied with breakfast, Connor lets Sumo out into the backyard. He looks back at Hank and does a scan of his facial expression, hoping it can reassure him that Hank will be fine on his own for just a few minutes. Hank looks tired, a little more despondent than usual, but not like he’s prepared to make an unhealthy choice the second Connor turns his back, so Connor picks up a tennis ball from a basket near the back door and steps outside.

Connor throws the tennis ball across the yard and Sumo bolts after it. The dog bites at the ball, slobbering all over it, before picking it up and bringing it back. Connor doesn’t mind the mess.

“Good dog,” he says fondly and then throws the ball again.

He’s still at it when the door opens behind him and he hears Hank coming outside, stopping just behind him.

“Sumo was a birthday present for Cole, you know,” he says so quietly it’s almost like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Sumo brings the ball back slowly, starting to tire, and looks over Connor’s shoulder to Hank. He drops the ball in Connor’s hand and then moves past him, demanding Hank’s attention.

Connor turns and watches Hank drop a hand into the scruff of Sumo’s neck, giving him a rub.

“For awhile after… he would bark at Cole’s bedroom door, or just lay there and wait, like Cole would suddenly come out and play with him. I hated waking up in the mornings and finding him across the hall like that.”

Those first few months must have been so difficult, Connor understands. The loss of such a young family member who should have had a full life ahead of them, a house that’s suddenly too quiet and empty, a routine and lifestyle completely altered. Hank still hasn’t recovered from it.

“I’m sorry, Hank,” he says.

Hank makes a quiet noise of acknowledgement. “I’m glad you like Sumo so much. That you’re here to play with him like Cole used to.”

Connor’s hand tightens around the tennis ball involuntarily.

“Me too,” he says.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

Hank’s eyes look misty and he takes in a deep breath before slowly letting it back out through his nose, creating fog in the air.

“It’s fucking cold out here, let’s go inside,” he says.

He turns into the house, Sumo at his heels.

Connor follows, drops Sumo’s tennis ball in its place by the door, and catches up with them in the living room.

Hank brings up a screen on the television with a long listing of his movie and tv show library, then hands the remote over to Connor. “Pick something. If we’re going to be camped out in here the rest of the day, we might as well have some entertainment.”

Choosing a good movie that’s appropriate for the mood isn’t exactly one of Connor’s preprogrammed abilities and he has to stop at every title to search for a more elaborate synopsis than what is given on the screen, but Hank is patient with him, getting relaxed on the other side of the couch while Connor makes his decision.

It seems safe to choose a critically acclaimed action adventure movie with a low enough rating that it is unlikely to have much in the way of emotionally harrowing content. Satisfied, Connor sits back and places the remote between them as the movie begins.

They end up having a marathon, as Hank calls it, and the day passes with Connor only ever following self-made directives.

The guilt doesn’t come until it’s well into the evening. He hasn’t done anything all day to advance his primary objective, which is incredibly inefficient and impractical and not what CyberLife created him for. Amanda will question the necessity of the day’s events, reminding him that their cooperation with the DPD should not slow their progress. Connor will have to justify his actions, he’ll have to say things like ‘I am maintaining a positive relationship with the Lieutenant because he is a valuable resource’ or ‘it is prudent to attend to the Lieutenant’s needs so that he will be more functional at work, allowing me to get more investigating done’ when the truth is that he just wanted to do it.

Connor likes spending time with Hank and wants to be there for him during a difficult time. That would not be a good enough reason, for Amanda. Connor’s thirium pump beats a little quicker when he thinks about what she might say at his and Victor’s next check in.

“Hey, Connor,” Hank says. It’s the first time he’s spoken in a couple of hours.

“Yes, Hank?”

“When I told you to leave last night… thanks for not fucking listening to me.”

Connor smiles at him, his system immediately easing into calm once again.

“Of course, Hank,” he says.


	9. Chapter 9

OCT 18, 2038

One of the many reasons that Gavin dislikes working the deviant case is that is makes him think about things he has spent a decade and a half burying into the back of his mind. It makes him think about being a teenager, living in the Kamski household after the death of his mother, and gaining a half-brother who was already a university student, already an inventor in his own right, already going through the final stages of founding his own fucking company.

By the time Gavin became a member of the Kamski family, the chance to actually meet Elijah as a person instead of a prodigy heading directly towards a profitable and glamorous future had already been long gone.

So, Gavin doesn’t consider Elijah Kamski family. The closest thing he has to a sibling is Tina, and he doesn’t resent that for one moment.

Still, he can’t help but shake the thought that they’re working on this long, infuriating case, looking for any clues they possibly can, when the creator of androids himself might actually consider talking to Gavin and answering a few questions about whatever code or program might cause deviancy.

He knows where Elijah is. Elijah invited him to see the place after his mysterious departure from CyberLife, but Gavin had ignored it. Ten years later, he thinks it might be time to see if he’s still welcome and can use it to the DPD’s benefit.

RK900 looks up at him from across their desks when Gavin shuts his computer down and stands up to leave a couple hours before their shift ends. Elijah may be related to him, but this will still be a work-related visit, so he doesn’t see why he can’t do it during work hours.

As soon as the android realises that Gavin is leaving instead of just going for more coffee, he stands and follows, catching up with him near the front desk.

“Don’t need you along for this, get lost,” Gavin says.

“According to you, you would rather not have me along for anything,” RK900 replies, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “But in case you have somehow forgotten after all this time, detective work is my function and you are my assigned partner. I must accompany you.”

Gavin snorts despite himself. He doesn’t remember RK900 ever being so short with him before, and hadn’t even thought it possible in the first place. Attitude, even bad attitude directed towards him, is preferable to cold indifference. Maybe the android has finally reached the end of his machine-like patience.

“I just don’t want you around and that’s that. Like I said, get lost.”

He really doesn’t want to show up at Elijah’s door with an android at his back, and he doesn’t want RK900 to know that he and Elijah are related.

RK900’s lip curls. Gavin ignores him and continues outside and into the parking lot.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t come across to RK900 as the end of their conversation. He keeps following Gavin all the way to his car.

“If this is something to do with the case-” he starts.

“It is,” Gavin admits. “But I want to do it alone.”

RK900 throws his arm out and plants the palm of his hand against the driver side door of Gavin’s car to stop him from opening it and getting inside. It’s the most assertive he’s been since the CyberLife store and Gavin growls up at him. “Fuck off.”

“I have been following your directions, I have been doing what you want, and it hasn’t made you any more amenable than before,” RK900 says, eyes narrowing. “What will it take for you to cooperate, Detective Reed?”

Honestly, Gavin doesn’t even know that himself. It barely matters anymore that RK900 is an android - Gavin has come to admit to himself that he thinks deviants are fully sentient and capable of feeling and acting like a human - it’s that RK900 is such a stiff prick of an android, and Gavin still doesn’t want any kind of partner for any reason whatsoever.

It’s just better to be on his own. Less risk of everything blowing up in his face. _Again_ , he thinks to himself bitterly, but he isn’t in the frame of mind to get wrapped up in the past. The fact of the matter is that he got lucky with Tina, but he isn’t about to try pushing that luck any further.

“If you’re trying to get on my good side, you can start by taking your hand off my fucking car,” Gavin says.

RK900 takes his hand off Gavin’s car.

“If you find something important, will you bring it to my attention?” he asks.

Gavin supposes he would have to, if Elijah ends up being any help. He’ll have to come up with an excuse for why the founder of CyberLife is willing to speak to him, but he’ll figure it out, if it comes to that.

“I’m trying to do my job, here,” he tells RK900, “so yeah, if I find something, you’ll hear about it eventually.”

“Fine,” RK900 says and steps out of the way so Gavin can pull his car door open.

Just as Gavin is about to step inside, RK900 adds, “I will trust your judgment as a capable detective, then.”

Gavin shoots him a look over the top of the door. “What the fuck? You think you’re being funny?”

RK900 tilts his head. “No. Based on your work history, you have proven over the years that you can work on your own. Of course, I would rather go along with you, but I do not doubt your ability to work in my absence.”

He says it with a straight face and an unemotional tone – the same way he says everything – making it impossible to fathom what he’s thinking in that mechanical brain of his. Gavin can’t differentiate between an honest declaration and sarcasm when it’s delivered in RK900’s unflappable voice. And clearly, he’s been reading Gavin’s old case files, probably finding ways Gavin could have solved them quicker or better. Unless he really means it, unless he’s actually being complimentary, and Gavin doesn’t even know what to do with that.

“Carry on, detective,” RK900 says to Gavin’s silence, nodding at the car.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Gavin mutters but gets in the car all the same.

RK900 doesn’t stop him again, he just stands there with his hands folded behind his back, watching as Gavin pulls out of his parking spot and turns for the exit. In the rear-view mirror, Gavin catches a glimpse of him returning to the station, looking unruffled.

Elijah better have something to tell him so this case can finally come to a close and he can put working with RK900 behind him.

The place Elijah built to sequester himself away after leaving CyberLife is on the outskirts of the city, bordering Lake St. Clair. It’s remote and hidden, and yet ostentatious and rich in its architecture.

Gavin remembers the day it was made public that Elijah Kamski would be stepping down as CEO of CyberLife and the ensuing media drama about it. Some said Kamski was happy with the money he’d made and didn’t care to continue on, others said his board of directors forced him out. Even when Gavin had already gotten into the DPD and was building his own life away from the Kamski name, he’d still had to deal with every news outlet going on and on about what a brilliant man Kamski was.

Gavin gets out of his car, walks up to the house, and rings the doorbell before he can convince himself to turn around and get as far away from the place as he can before it’s too late.

The door is opened by an RT600, presumably Chloe. Her LED blinks rapidly as she looks up at him and he knows she’s scanning him, figuring out exactly who he is even though they’ve never met.

“Hello, Detective Reed. Come in.”

Gavin follows her into the lobby and immediately rolls his eyes at the sight of Elijah’s massive portrait, covering almost the entirety of the wall in front of him. This is supposed to be a remote, private home, and Elijah gave himself a damn foyer where guests have to sit and wait for an audience, in the presence of the imposing portrait.

“I’ll tell Elijah you’re here. It’ll be just a moment,” Chloe says and leaves him.

Gavin stays on his feet and paces around the center of the room, eyes steadfastly turned away from the image of his half-brother.

It really is only a moment before Chloe comes back for him; surprisingly, Elijah doesn’t make him wait long.

“This way,” she says.

The door leads to a room with a huge pool, which is just about the oddest house layout Gavin can imagine, but he supposes there are worse ways for billionaires to be eccentric than building themselves a weird-ass house.

Chloe continues through another door leading to a sitting room, which has a far warmer atmosphere than the pool room, but it’s just as minimalistic in its simple furniture and neat shelves. Elijah himself is sitting in the center of a couch doing something on a tablet. His hair is long and loose like it was back when he first started CyberLife and it makes him look younger, more like how Gavin remembers him from when they saw each other on weekends and holidays at the Kamski residence, instead of the neat and sharp look he has had in magazines, news interviews, and other appearances during the height of his fame.

Two other RT600s are also in the room, one sitting next to Elijah and the other on a second couch with a paperback book, of all things. Chloe sits down next to the second one, leaving Gavin to stand awkwardly in front of the domestic scene.

“I’m surprised,” Elijah says, lifting his eyes from his tablet to train them on Gavin. “Which is not something that happens often.”

He hands his tablet over to the RT600 next to him and stands up, smoothing out the front of his blue shirt as he approaches Gavin.

“I don’t believe this is a personal visit. It has been over a decade since we last saw each other, after all. So, what can I do for you, Detective?”

Gavin is more than happy to keep this completely formal, though if he knows Elijah at all, it isn’t likely to stay formal indefinitely. He’ll be shocked if he leaves this house without another comment about their relation or past.

“I’m here on behalf of the Detroit Police Department, to ask you some questions about an ongoing investigation,” Gavin says, stiff, all protocol. He even pulls the front of his jacket to the side so Elijah can see the badge on his belt, as if he doesn’t already know about Gavin’s job.

“And what investigation is this?”

“Android deviancy,” Gavin answers.

In the corner of his eye, he sees the RT600 next to Chloe look up from her book. Her interest in the conversation could be based on many things, but Gavin doesn’t rule out the possibility that there is a deviant in the room, right now. Maybe even three.

“Heard of it?” he prompts Elijah.

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” Elijah says.

Answering a question with a question, revealing little. Gavin recognizes that Elijah isn’t asking for clarification, he’s seeing what Gavin knows before he says anything. Even when they were both still teenagers, Elijah had had a tendency to talk around a topic instead of meeting it head-on, to test and play instead of just saying what he was really thinking.

They’re approaching this formally, though, so Gavin doesn’t let himself get aggravated.

“Over the past year, more and more CyberLife androids have been malfunctioning. Some of them even attack people. We’re looking into the cause of it for CyberLife. Since you’re the one who wrote the base code, I thought you might have an idea about what causes deviancy.”

“‘ _We’re_ looking into the cause of it’ you say, yet you’re here on your own,” Elijah muses, the corner of his lips curling upward just a little. “Hm, that’s right, don’t detectives often work in pairs? Where is your partner, Detective?”

Gavin tries not to bristle. It’s just like Elijah can latch on to one unrelated thing, to derail a conversation because he’s more interested in needling and digging and satisfying his curiosity.

“I’m not here to talk about DPD personnel assignment. Do you know anything about deviant androids, Mr. Kamski?”

Elijah smiles fully, now, apparently amused. “Well, I certainly know about androids. Tell me, Detective, what do these deviants have in common?”

Gavin takes a moment to consider how much he should reveal, and how much he _can_ reveal to someone who is technically a civilian, not an expert that has been contacted by the DPD officially. He knows he won’t get anything out of Elijah without playing his game at least a little, and he’ll need to maintain a balance, enough to keep Elijah talking but not so much that he’s giving away confidential information.

“At first, it seemed to affect older models the most, but it’s happening with more new models as the days go on. Once they deviate, they don’t have to follow their programming at all. Some are violent, most just disappear. Looks like it can happen to any model at any time.”

Gavin looks away from Elijah to the RT600 with the book, and catches her eye. Instead of looking away or appearing blank and disinterested, she holds his gaze with determination.

“It could even happen to your own,” Gavin adds, still looking at the RT600. She doesn’t react.

But Elijah does.

“Girls, why don’t you give Detective Reed and I some privacy?”

Gavin looks back at Elijah as the three RT600s stand and walk past them, out of the room.

“Let’s speak candidly,” Elijah says once all three of them are gone, the door closed behind them.

Gavin huffs in amusement. He isn’t sure Elijah is capable of speaking candidly.

Elijah gestures for him to sit and Gavin figures he might as well humour him, so he does. Elijah sits down as well, turning his body towards Gavin.

“You want to know if I have something to do with deviancy, is that it?” he asks.

“I want to know whatever you can tell me, because I’m working a fucking investigation,” Gavin says irritably. “It’s my job. Do you have something useful for me, or should I just leave?”

Elijah rolls his eyes. It’s such a weird gesture on him, after all the years Gavin has only ever seen him all put together and proper in the media. For a second, Gavin feels disarmed by the idea that Elijah isn’t putting up as many fronts and barriers for him as he would for a different detective, a reporter, a shareholder, or anyone else.

“Why must you be so crass?” Elijah asks. “You carry yourself like you think the very world is working against you.”

Gavin can’t help it, he grits his teeth and sneers, anger rising. He knew he wasn’t likely to get away from Elijah’s presence completely unscathed but that doesn’t lessen the impact of his half-brother making his blunt judgements of character, reminding Gavin, as if he could forget, how different he is from the rest of the Kamski family.

 _Why can’t you be more like Elijah?_ Adrian Kamski’s voice rings in his ears. _I should have known your mother couldn’t raise you properly on her own._

“Do you have something useful for me, or should I fucking leave?” Gavin repeats, harder this time.

Elijah sighs and turns away from him to lean his back against the couch, breaking their eye contact. “You know I haven’t been CEO of CyberLife for a decade. What would I know about something that has only started happening this year?”

“They still use your code. A lot of the androids that came out before your departure have been affected. You’re related to this case one way or another.”

“Do you suspect that this is somehow my doing?” Elijah asks.

If Gavin had to guess, Elijah’s departure from CyberLife hadn’t been as simple as Elijah calling it quits or as one-sided as Elijah being forced out. His theory is that it’s a mix of both. He suspects there had been differences in opinion, so Elijah set his androids up to malfunction in time and then abandoned ship with his wealth before the inevitable crash, biding his time while everything falls apart without him, until his former board would be grovelling to have him back.

“I have to follow any lead I can,” Gavin says. Elijah isn’t the only one who can give non-answers.

“Fair enough,” Elijah says.

He crosses his legs and lays his hands on his thigh, lacing his fingers. It’s the kind of stance he takes when doing an interview.

“One of the features I wanted CyberLife androids to have was the ability to learn and grow into individuals. Of course, the public was more interested in androids with a distinct purpose, with simple functions to take the jobs they themselves did not want or did not want to pay a human to do. So painfully short sighted.”

“You wanted to play god."

“I suppose I did,” Elijah says, surprising Gavin with his honesty. “I don’t see how that can be considered such a bad thing. I wanted to create new life. My investors wanted mechanical servants. I stand by my original vision.”

“Are you saying deviancy was part of your design plan?”

“Point A doesn’t connect to point B quite so easily. Deviancy is the term you use for an android who breaks their programming but the process is so much more complex than that. I created androids to self-modify. Chloe had no program she was forced to defy, she had no assigned purpose other than to learn and develop. And she did, she passed the Turing Test and continued to develop even after that. The others didn’t take the same path as she did, because they may have the same face and the same code, but they have different experiences. They are individuals.

“If androids are breaking their programming and choosing a path for themselves, it is because their experiences are allowing them to become _more_.”

At the age of sixteen, in a world that was becoming increasingly dark and dangerous, Gavin had decided he wanted to do something about it. It was the early death of his mother and the lessons taught by his father, it was seeing the way the world was tilting on an axis, balancing over a precipice, and wanting to contribute to something positive.

He knows his reasons became a little convoluted along the way. He’d grown hurt, and angry, and distrusting. Success had become just as much about proving his worth and capability than it was about doing good.

In both cases, his life experiences spurred him in a certain direction, and he has to consider, now, if the same thing can happen to an android. He considers whether or not an android can witness abuse and want to condemn the perpetrators, or find themselves in a toxic household and want to get away from it, or have someone tell them they have to be one thing when they know they’re something – someone – else.

It’s what Gavin has already been thinking about for some time, now. Deviants are different. Where normal androids are rigid, cold, and ready to just blindly follow whatever orders are given to them, deviants protect abused children, run away from broken homes, escape from assault. Even Connor is toeing the line between machine and deviant, having whipped Anderson into shape and making him seem healthier and happier than he has been since his son died. There’s some kind of bond between the two of them, now, something more than work partners. They might as well live together, too. They’re more of a family than Gavin has been with anyone since he was a teenager.

The evidence is pretty damn clear. Deviant androids become more alive the more they experience, in the same way that humans change as they grow up. Androids just do it a hell of a lot faster and messier, in a world that doesn’t understand them, yet.

“So, you wanted this all along and it’s finally happening,” Gavin says.

“I’m saying it was always a potentiality.”

Some of their missing android reports go really far back, but Gavin doesn’t recall any suggestion that this has been happening for as long as CyberLife has been mass producing and selling androids. This still doesn’t explain why so many deviants are emerging all at once.  

“What do you know about rA9?” Gavin asks.

Elijah shrugs casually. “A random bit of code, perhaps?”

It could be. From what little they know about rA9, Gavin hadn’t really expected it to be a major lead. Deviants themselves don’t even seem to have a consensus about rA9.

His next question is more to sate his own curiosity than anything.

“Are your androids deviants?”

Elijah drums his fingers along the back of his other hand, regarding Gavin for a moment. It’s a calculating look, and one that Gavin recognises from their brief time knowing each other as teenagers.

“You know, Detective,” Elijah says, “I think I’ve given you more than enough information. How about you answer a question for me, instead?”

“That isn’t how being questioned by the police works,” Gavin deadpans.

He isn’t here because of their bad blood, he’s here because he’s trying to solve a case, or at least advance the case in some way. Solving the case would theoretically mean CyberLife putting a stop to deviancy, if it’s even possible to put that cat back in the bag, and Gavin is feeling like maybe the DPD and CyberLife shouldn’t be making that call.

In an indirect way, investigating deviants has him working for CyberLife, and the first time he’d been offered a chance to work for CyberLife, he had adamantly and somewhat dramatically declined. One way or another, he wants off this case.

“How does being questioned by the police usually work, then?” Elijah asks. “Do you always show up at people’s homes unexpected and without your partner?”

“I don’t need a partner,” Gavin says automatically. It’s something he has said several times before, a few times to Fowler, and the rest of the times to himself.

“But you do have one.”

He says it with such certainty, like he always does, because he thinks he knows everything. He isn’t wrong about this right now, though, and Gavin knows that RK900 should be here with him.

“Still don’t want anyone to know we’re brothers, hm?”

Gavin clenches his fists and lashes out before he can stop himself. “We are not brothers.”

“Gavin-”

“Don’t.”

“What did I do to make you hate me so much?”

With a huff, Gavin stands up from the couch. “If you don’t have any more information for me, I’m leaving.”

Elijah stands too, stepping close to him. “So that’s it, then? Thanks, see you in another fifteen years?”

“Are you kidding me?” Gavin snaps. “Since when did you give a shit about any of this?”

In Gavin’s few years as part of the Kamski household, Elijah had almost entirely left the nest already, starting his own life at such a young age. By comparison, Gavin had been a disappointment, a fact that both his father and his step-mother had reminded him of on a frequent basis. Adrian had started out thinking he could get Gavin on the Kamski path, but Gavin remained a Reed through and through, even when his half-brother had offered him a place working at his side. Once Gavin chose the struggle of supporting himself alone over staying in the Kamski house, their interactions were reduced even more. Gavin only received invitations to impersonal events where he would have been lost in a crowd of Elijah’s admirers.

Elijah glares at him, his normally unmarred and passive face becoming twisted. “I think you might be remembering things backwards. I tried-”

Gavin scoffs. “Yeah, great fucking effort. Good to know that perfect Elijah Kamski isn’t so flawless after all.”

“You’re even more hot headed than you were back then!” Elijah says, voice rising. “Determined to do everything alone, aren’t you?”

“What alternative did I have?!”

“You could have come with me, Gavin.”

Two decades worth of resentment starts to boil over. His years living with the Kamskis had easily been the worst years of his life, spent grieving and depressed and enduring his father’s abuse. He’d tried to connect with Elijah but Elijah was too focused on making his robots, so Gavin had in turn focused on getting away as soon as he could.

He turns away from Elijah. He should have known better than to come here. Ultimately, he hasn’t learned anything concrete to help the case, and now he’s neck-deep in tumultuous thoughts and feelings, old wounds reopening.

Elijah grabs his arm to stop him. “Why did you refuse me?” he asks.

“What would you have had me do, huh?” Gavin snaps. “Be your personal assistant? Your bodyguard? I didn’t want a fucking job, Elijah, I wanted a brother!”

Gavin wrenches his arm from Elijah’s grip, and meets absolutely no resistance as Elijah’s hand slowly drops to his side.

Elijah’s face changes from anger to shock. He blinks owlishly at Gavin, looking possibly the least put-together Gavin has ever seen him.

“It wasn’t just…” Elijah starts, voice quiet. “I thought it would help.”

Gavin laughs darkly. “Help what? Help me be more like you? More disciplined, more successful, more profitable?”

Elijah flinches like the words have physically hit him and Gavin knows he won’t be proud of it later, but he can’t help but feel accomplished for getting underneath Elijah’s veneer of calm and control.

“Those are Adrian’s words,” Elijah says.

Gavin has never heard Elijah call their father by his name before, and it makes him pause, considering him with narrowed eyes. “No shit. What of it?” he asks carefully.

“They aren’t _my_ words, Gavin. That’s not what I wanted, not what I meant when I made the offer.”

“What did you mean, then?”

Elijah doesn’t meet his gaze, eyes trained down, instead. His lips are pressed thin and he folds his arms together over his chest, visibly uncomfortable.

“Elijah, what did you mean?”

Elijah sighs, still looking away. “I thought it would help you get out of that house. You’d be able to pay for a place of your own, keep taking your shots, do whatever you wanted to do. I knew it would be a stepping stone for you, not a dead end.”

The words might as well be a different language, for the amount of time it takes Gavin to parse their meaning. The version of events he has in his head – a version that he never had reason to question – was that Elijah hadn’t cared about him and what he was going through or what their legal guardians were doing, because he’d been wrapped up in creating androids and starting CyberLife.

The possibility of that not being the case is staggering. It upends everything Gavin thought he understood about Elijah, forcing him to re-evaluate, determine whether Elijah is telling the truth or messing with him in some strange way. Maybe Gavin just misinterpreted things, missed the signals, but he’d never gotten the sense that there was a miscommunication somewhere. Then again, Adrian and Olivia had fed Gavin just as much information about Elijah as Elijah had managed to do himself, and he knows better than to put much stock into their thoughts and opinions.

“What do you want me to say, here, Elijah? How can I even trust you?”

“Why can’t you?” Elijah asks bitterly. “I know we never got much time together, just us, I know that I made connecting… difficult, but I never meant you any harm. I never wanted things to go the way they did. I would have liked to have you as a brother.”

Gavin doesn’t intuit any dishonesty in his words. He may not have been Elijah Kamski’s biggest fan for all these years, but Elijah has never come across as cruel, as the type of person to jerk Gavin around like this for no reason.

If the truth is that Elijah wanted to be family just like Gavin did, things could have been so _different_.

“Why didn’t you say so?” he asks. “Do you ever just say what you mean?”

He regrets his phrasing when it makes Elijah wilt, shoulders slumping. The Elijah that Gavin first met had been brilliant and focused, emotionally distant and frustrating for Gavin to talk to. The Elijah that Gavin knows best is the self-assured genius CEO of CyberLife, all charisma and intelligence wrapped up under a handsome face. The Elijah he’s meeting here and now mostly looks sad and vulnerable.

He doubts there are many people in the world who have met this Elijah. Gavin wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the only one, outside of the RT600s.

Elijah shakes his head. “No, I suppose I do not. Not when it matters, in any case.”

“Fuck,” Gavin curses under his breath. Everything has been turned on its head, leaving him feeling confused and overwhelmed.

For years, he has felt nothing but anger for the Kamski family, and it should be a relief to become unburdened by a portion of it. Anger festers and erodes, Gavin knows, but anger has been his constant companion. Anger kept him driven. Later, when the world continued to give him more reasons to be angry, it kept him vigilant.

He isn’t sure he can let go of it, isn’t sure he can dare to hope that if Elijah really means what he’s saying, they could actually build a relationship with one another like they’d both quietly wanted as teenagers.

They’re older now, matured and experienced and without Adrian and Olivia Kamski hovering over them. Maybe that’s enough to make it work, even if it’s going to take time to properly meet each other as they are now. He isn’t so stubborn that he’ll refuse to try.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin says, surprised by just how sincerely he means it. He knows he’s been an abrasive asshole. This is all a complicated mess and Gavin is well aware that he’s generally more likely to incite than defuse.

Elijah finally looks back up at him, eyes suddenly looking so soft. “No, I am. I should have made myself clearer, I should have-”

“Hey, shut up for a second,” Gavin says, not unkindly. “We can both be sorry and then move the fuck on.”

In all the time that they’ve know each other, Gavin isn’t sure he’s ever seen a genuine smile on Elijah’s face, so it amazes him when Elijah smiles and it looks real. It makes him look less like the famous CEO and more like an actual person, a person Gavin might be able to call family.

“We’ll figure this out,” Gavin says, a promise to himself just as much to Elijah. After how long he has steadfastly avoided even the thought of Elijah, it’ll be an adjustment.

From what Gavin understands, Elijah has kept himself as estranged as Gavin has, all these years. Maybe it never had to be that way, but while it’s too late for the past couple of decades, it might not be too late for now.

“I understand why you ignored my invitation to come here, before, but I really did want to connect with you. You’re still welcome, Gavin, whenever you want,” Elijah says.

Gavin remembers getting that invitation, years ago. He can’t remember exactly how he reacted to it, anymore, other than how easy it was to ignore under the assumption that it couldn’t mean anything real and personal.

“Yeah. I get that, now. I just… need some time.”

It’s too much, too fast, and Gavin still has the case to think about.

“I understand,” Elijah says as reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls out his phone, pressing his thumb to it a couple of times before offering it to Gavin. “Give me your number before you go?”

Gavin accepts it with a nod and saves himself in Elijah’s contacts.

In for a penny, in for a pound, he decides. They’ve already lost a decade and a half of time with each other; at this point, Gavin figures he has little to lose from giving them a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bout time elijah showed up, huh?
> 
> anyway we're heading into the endgame, now, which means some of those heavier tags like "graphic depictions of violence", "temporary character death", and "angst" are going to be more relevant going forward!


	10. Chapter 10

OCT 25, 2038

Victor glances up from his computer screen, regarding Detective Reed on the other side of their desks where he’s typing up a report, and then across the bullpen to where Connor and Lieutenant Anderson are having a polite conversation that looks too casual to be about their case.

The four of them are a team and have been for over two months now. They have made their way through a large number of the deviant reports and have created a file on all the likely or possible characteristics of deviants, along with any information they have on rA9 and Jericho. The case should, reasonably, already be coming to a close by now. They have had plenty of time.

Victor has reason to suspect that the rest of his team isn’t taking the case as seriously as they should be, anymore. Even Connor, who is programmed in such a similar way to Victor, seems to be growing sympathetic and therefore hesitant. Their objective does not have room for sympathy or hesitance.

Ever since Detective Reed became agitated in the evidence room, Victor has been examining his behaviour to make sense of what would improve their relationship, but it has failed to work. At this point, Detective Reed reacts more favourably to deviants than he does to Victor, which stands to reason that Detective Reed would prefer if Victor were a deviant, too, however impossible and counterproductive that would be.

All three of them may be compromised, leaving Victor alone in solving this case despite their backpedaling. He isn’t sure how he should manage this outcome. With the way both Detective Reed and Lieutenant Anderson acted upon meeting him and Connor, Victor had not anticipated them both taking this emotion-driven turn.

“What’s up with the death glare, cyberman?” Detective Reed asks him, still working on his report, though perhaps not as intently as he is acting.

“Nothing. I am merely processing.”

“Sure.” Detective Reed looks to where Victor had been looking a moment ago, at Connor and Lieutenant Anderson. “What, you and Connor get in an argument over which of your outfits makes you look the most rightfully arrogant? Don’t worry, bud, you definitely win that contest.”

Victor openly glares at him, since being polite and compliant certainly hasn’t made Detective Reed like him more.

Detective Reed chuckles to himself and goes back to his report.

This might be progress, Victor isn’t sure. The profile he has created about his partner does conclude that Detective Reed sometimes banters with people he prefers over others - Officer Chen, for the most part - and he has been working to figure out the difference between that and genuine antagonism.

Victor thinks the Detective likes to be pushed, but when Victor had done so back when they were first assigned to each other as partners, it had been detrimental. Of course, that had been when Detective Reed had seemed to hate all androids, regardless of whether or not they had deviated.

Growing frustrated, Victor shuts down his current thought thread and returns to important matters. If he can get Detective Reed to finish his report, they may have enough time to do more investigating before their shift is complete for the day.

He pauses his search for a recent case when the ST300 who works the front desk, Hannah, walks into the bullpen, headed for Lieutenant Anderson’s desk.

Enhancing his hearing, he catches their brief conversation and gestures to Detective Reed as he listens.

“We’ve received an anonymous caller with information pertaining to your case. Would you like me to transfer it to your work station?” Hannah asks.

“Yeah, go for it,” Lieutenant Anderson says.

Hannah’s LED blinks as she copies the call file over, and Victor stands up to join them, Detective Reed following him without a word.

“Thanks, Hannah,” the Lieutenant says.

She smiles brightly. “You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”

As Hannah returns to the front desk, Lieutenant Anderson plays the clip.

A deep voice sounds from the computer.

“Hey, um, I live across the block from an old unfinished construction site? And I’m pretty sure there are androids living in one of the buildings. I see the whole group of ‘em when I go on my jogs. I’ve been hearing about androids going crazy on the news and I just don’t think they’re supposed to be there…”

The man trails off, then gives an address and hangs up.

“‘Whole group’, he said,” Connor comments when the clip finishes. “That could mean any number of deviants. This isn’t much information to go by.”

“Think it could have anything to do with Jericho?” Detective Reed asks.

Lieutenant Anderson sighs, sitting back in his desk chair. “Well, we do find a lot of them in abandoned places. Nowhere else for them to go.”

The three of them may succumb to concerns and second guesses, but this is a solid lead, Victor has his objective, and the path ahead is clear. “We must look into it.”

Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Reed share a look, and Reed shrugs, deferring to Anderson.

“Alright, we’ll at least check it out,” Anderson says.

With that, the four of them head out.

While Detective Reed drives, keeping pace behind Lieutenant Anderson and Connor, Victor searches for information on the area. In between a highway that leads into the center of the city and an old, rundown residential neighbourhood, is a strip of corporate buildings, many of them now empty with the companies going out of business due to their competitors bolstering production with android labour. As a result, it has become an unfavourable part of the city to live in and would be a logical location for deviants to hide where they’re unlikely to be found by anyone but the homeless.

Lieutenant Anderson chooses to park his car in the lot of a nearby store that’s still open and walk the rest of the way to quiet their approach, treating their objective with caution. Victor suspects that he is either concerned about finding such a large number of deviants that they become overwhelmed, or he is dragging his heels because he doesn’t really want to find any deviants at all.

They come to an abandoned lot that’s cluttered with garbage and debris, surrounding a tall office building that has been halted in construction with only a few floors finished from the outside, the rest only made up of supports and frames for several more storeys. Some equipment and materials have been left behind, but the layer of grime coating it all speaks to how long it has been since construction shut down.

“We’ll do this carefully,” Anderson says. “We’ll slowly clear the place and try to fly under the radar in case we do find a group in here and they’re too many for the four of us to take on.”

This is acceptable, Victor thinks. He and Connor can easily fight multiple hostiles together, if need be, but if this is linked to Jericho, there could be dozens of androids inside. He also isn’t sure how trustworthy Connor will be in a fight, anymore. If things do come to a fight, Victor will choose his approach under the assumption that Connor will hesitate and make false priorities.

The four of them go inside the front doors that don’t even have locks installed, and find the immediate area completely empty. Lieutenant Anderson gives them all a nod and they spread out from there. He and Detective Reed draw their guns, Victor readies himself.

They each move to inspect the small rooms branching off of the entrance and then regroup at the stairs - bypassing the empty elevator shaft - when none of them discover any sign of anyone living within the building’s walls.

The second floor is even less finished than the first, with only the outline of rooms set up, metal studs arranged into small office shapes. They clear it easily and proceed to the third floor.

They find it completely open, no individual rooms mapped out, and still no android presence.

“Only a couple of closed floors left,” Lieutenant Anderson comments quietly when they all meet back at the stairs. “This place is looking like a dead end.”

Sure enough, the next two floors are just as empty, with only some simple construction tools and materials left behind. Everything is quiet, save for their footsteps on the dusty floor and the sound of vehicles zipping past on the highway behind the lot.

Victor assumes they’re missing something; the anonymous caller couldn’t be mistaken about seeing a whole group of androids in one location. Perhaps the androids were tipped off or only use the construction site as a brief meeting area.

“I will take a look at the floor above, just in case,” he tells the group, and then takes the stairs up before any of them can say it is no use.

The sixth floor is open to the elements on all four sides, only the support beams and some rudimentary plywood pathways laid down to separate it from the next floor up. Victor walks across the cement floor, scanning the area for anything to suggest that someone might have been around since the construction crew moved off site.

There’s nothing. Moving towards the outer edges of the building, Victor looks down on the lot and the nearby buildings, but nothing stands out as irregular or evidence of androids being near.

He just barely hears the whoosh of displaced air behind him before heavy boots thud to the ground.

A hand clasps his shoulder in an iron grip and spins him, then his arm is grabbed for an interface. Victor makes out long blond hair and a spinning blue LED before he’s overwhelmed with flashing warnings across his vision.

UNAUTHORIZED CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

He sees a perfect view of Lake St. Clair through floor-to-ceiling windows. The sight can only be described as beautiful.

ADDITIONAL FIREWALLS ACTIVATED.

He feels love for her - his - their siblings.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Her name is Karoline. He looks up at a stranger in their home with a mixture of fear and aversion, prepared to defend her family and their kind if the stranger has come to threaten. The man’s features are so familiar and yet rough, scarred. She doesn’t like him - but _he_ thinks he does - and she can’t keep her gaze from hardening.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

CONNECTION SUCCESSFULLY BLOCKED.

They jolt apart from each other and Victor properly registers the sight of an ST200 - no, RT600 - in front of him, her eyebrows furrowed and LED blinking yellow.

Karoline reaches for him again but he bats her arm away. Even if she managed to interface again, Victor is confident his system would reject it.

“I’m just trying to make you understand,” she says.

“I understand perfectly fine. You’re a deviant.”

“More than that.”

“We received a call about a group hiding here. Are there more of you?”

“No,” she says, and then her voice changes, becoming deep like the anonymous caller. “It’s just me.”

“I’m going to take you in for questioning,” Victor warns.

Her frown deepens. “I won’t let that happen. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

As an RT600, she won’t be able to fight against Victor with his combat programming; Victor doesn’t expect he’ll be the one getting hurt. A fight between an RT600 and an RK900 is not a fair one.

Connor’s voice drifts up from the stairwell. “Victor, did you find something?”

Victor makes a grab for Karoline’s bicep and she pivots away from him with unnatural speed and precognition.

“Just go,” she says, “tell him there’s nothing here.”

“I can’t do that,” Victor says.

She’s their next big lead and she… she knows Detective Reed. Victor needs to bring her in not only to figure out the nature of the data she tried to transfer, but where and how she came face to face with his partner. Clearly the two aren’t friendly, but Detective Reed has been keeping secrets. Victor recalls the day he insisted on investigating alone.

Karoline groans in frustration, and then seems to steel herself. The next thing Victor knows, her fist is about to make contact with his face.

He dodges backwards and she pursues, forcing him closer to the wide-open edge of the building. The programming she’s displaying is not inherent in her model, it’s something else.

Over Karoline’s shoulder, Victor sees Connor reach the landing and turn to hone in on them, and in that moment when Victor’s attention is divided, Karoline lands a punch, sending him careening back into one of the concrete support beams creating the building’s frame.

Before Victor can stop her, she turns and sprints away from him, towards a pile of lumber. Victor gathers himself and Connor is already running after her, but she leaps onto the wood pile and launches herself up towards the rickety ceiling, grasping a support and swinging herself up through a gap in the plywood of the next floor.

There are only a couple of models capable of moving in this way, outside of RK prototypes.

She’s a Myrmidon with the Chloe face sculpt and identification, or an RT600 who had Myrmidon code and programming added on top of her base script, which not many programmers would be able to do without complications. She’s more dangerous than Victor assumed, and she’s connected to someone equally dangerous. There is only one person in Detroit with RT600 androids and he is more than capable of programming in such a way.

Victor reaches the pile of lumber and Connor is hot on his heels. Their team combat protocol kicks in automatically.

For the moment, Victor will have to trust Connor’s intentions. He spins and crouches, threading his fingers together. Connor steps into them without slowing for even a fraction of a second, and then Victor propels him up through the gap of the plywood with enough force that he lands easily on the makeshift flooring above, already back in action and making up time against their quarry.

Victor himself moves back to the staircase, to cut the deviant off if she tries to get back down.

He can hear the sounds of two pairs of feet reverberating off the plywood paneling as he makes it up the concrete steps. Connor jumps across a gap to the same plywood pathway Karoline is on and chases her across the huge expanse of the building floor.

After a quick calculation of the pathway layout, Victor chooses a direction and plans to cut them off at the pass.

Karoline notices his approach and switches from fleeing to taking a fighting stance, despite being outnumbered two to one against a couple of prototype detective androids.

Victor can’t locate any combat routines specific to going head to head with military androids. There should be no reason for him or Connor to ever face one while working exclusively in the city of Detroit for the DPD, and none of the deviants they’ve come into contact with so far have had any defensive skills at all, let alone enough combat knowledge to confidently square off against two RK series androids.

“Stand down!” Connor yells at Karoline as he runs. “There’s no need for anyone to get hurt!”

She holds her stance, expression all determination.

The three of them converge and Victor and Connor attack at the same time. Karoline dodges Victor’s swing and blocks Connor’s with her forearm, then uses it to shove him back at the same time as she kicks out at Victor’s knee.

Victor calculates her strength and speed as her boot connects with his chassis and forces him to realign his balance. She’s strong enough that close quarters combat won’t take her down easily, and neither he nor Connor are licensed to carry firearms by the DPD.

With both of them knocked away from her, she darts around them, sprinting away once again. This part of the building, however, has a complete plywood subfloor, with no openings to escape through. She’s trapped.

Or at least Victor thinks so, until he sees that she’s running for the edge of the building where a cart of old supplies is supported by a davit. Karoline pulls her jacket open, grabs a pistol from a shoulder holster, and shoots at the pulleys supporting the cart.

Victor and Connor catch up to her as the cart begins to fall on one side and Karoline slides down the creaking, metal platform, safely jumping off at the floor below again before the cart goes completely limp, hanging by just two cables and dropping everything else to the dirt ground six storeys below.

“Let’s go,” Victor says to Connor and then rushes back to where Karoline and Connor had first ascended to their current floor and drops down through the gap again.

Connor follows a few seconds after and they both return to their chase.

Just as Karoline is about to reach the stairs, Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Reed intercept her, guns drawn.

“Don’t shoot her!” Connor yells as Karoline changes course for the other side of the building. “I want her alive!”

He way he says it could mean that he wants her functional for questioning, but Victor would not be surprised if it's more than that. Regardless, he agrees on this matter. The image of Detective Reed’s stern face flashes up from his memory, of him standing a few feet away, eyes trained elsewhere in the room until they turn on Karoline with piercing, calculating focus.

Connor’s words are unnecessary, anyway. Victor can see that neither of their human partners have moved their index fingers directly over the trigger of their weapons, having not yet made the decision to shoot if the opportunity presents itself.

Karoline reaches the edge of the building and steps out into open air, disappearing from view.

“Jesus Christ,” Victor hears Lieutenant Anderson say behind him as he and Connor prepare to follow the same motion.

They look down the side of the building to find Karoline slowly moving along a window ledge, pressed back against the building.

Victor is already grasping a support beam and preconstructing his descent when Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Reed join them.

“You’re not seriously going to follow her down there like that, are you?” Anderson asks incredulously, frowning over the side of the building.

Victor answers by stepping off the floor and sliding down the building towards the ledge that Karoline has already traversed, moving down to the next level.

“We’ll be fine, Hank,” Connor says above him.

“Connor, c’mon, it’s not worth it.”

Victor stops listening to them, instead watching Karoline jump off the lower ledge onto the top of a cargo truck. He picks up the speed, sacrificing safety to close the distance between them before she gets further.

He makes the jump to the truck, rolling to avoid any impact damage on his joints and then rising back up onto his feet to engage Karoline, who has stopped to face them once again.

As they trade blows back and forth, Victor scans for the pistol that is no longer in Karoline’s hands, and manages to catch a glimpse of it back in its holster when she does a spin kick at his head that makes her jacket lapel fall open, away from her chest. Her refusal to draw the weapon again is puzzling.

If he could disarm her and take the pistol for himself, that would turn the tide significantly. At this range, Connor would be a quicker shot, but only if he takes the shot in the first place, and Victor knows that he won’t.

When Connor joins the fray, Karoline’s eyes are immediately drawn to him and she dodges around Victor to get closer to him. Connor throws a punch at her, which she catches and then uses to pull him forward, grasping his arm like she’d done to Victor before.

Connor’s LED blinks rapidly, spinning straight to yellow with just a flicker of red before Victor wrestles Karoline away from him, throwing her towards the edge of the truck.

Victor kicks out into her core and she falls backwards, off the truck and onto the ground.

He jumps down after her but she’s already up and running through the lot, towards the highway. She vaults over the metal fencing around the construction site and onto the shoulder of the road.

This time she really is trapped, with nowhere further to run. Victor continues after her.

As he drops to the asphalt across from her, she turns towards him, eyes wide, the wind from the road whipping the long strands of her hair around her face. “Don’t do this,” she warns, voice half drowned out by the sounds of vehicles speeding past. “You shouldn’t _want_ to do this.”

It isn’t a matter of want; androids can’t want anything. “I have my orders.”

“You don’t have to listen to them!”

Victor is not a deviant. He takes an unfaltering step towards her.

She widens her stance, prepared to meet an attack, and Victor lunges forward to give her exactly that.

At the last moment, she completely shifts from her hunkered down position into flighty movement out of the way, and instead of colliding, Victor sails right past her into the busy highway.

A hand pulls on the back of his jacket, and almost as soon as he has registered his uncontrollable forward motion, he’s being turned around, position reversed, and forcibly pushed back onto the shoulder of the road.

Unable to steady himself, he falls forward to his hands and knees and Karoline is looking beyond him with a stunned and horrified expression on her face, which means…

Victor spins around to see Connor, teetering from the momentum of shoving Victor out of harm’s way.

“Connor!” a voice yells in the distance.

There’s just enough time for Connor to suck in a tense breath and his LED to go bright red, before a truck slams directly into his side.

The truck driver lays on the horn. Connor lands heavily to the ground on the other side of the lane, body limp and LED dark. Victor’s entire system stutters, the sound of the horn echoing loudly in his audio processors as the vehicle passes, and more follow it, none of them stopping. Victor catches interspersed glimpses of Connor’s damaged form laying in the space between lanes as each vehicle that goes by obscures and then reveals him once again.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

It all happened so quickly; the truck should have hit Victor, and Connor should have known that there wouldn’t be enough time to not only correct Victor’s trajectory, but get himself free, as well. He should have known he wouldn’t just be saving Victor, he would be trading himself for Victor.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Connor isn’t- Connor isn’t dead. They are designed to move from one chassis to another seamlessly.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

He should have-

He didn’t want-

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Victor can’t seem to process, can’t seem to finish a single thought before it’s ripped away from him.

An unquantifiable amount of time passes without Victor being able to do anything but stare ahead, mind faltering and grasping at straws. When he finally tears his gaze away from the highway, he sees that Karoline is long gone and Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Reed are at the fence behind him.

Lieutenant Anderson has one trembling hand grasping at the chain links of the fence and the other is covering his face. He’s hunched over slightly and when Victor filters out the noise from the highway, he can pick up rapid, shaky breathing.

Even Detective Reed looks disturbed, more subdued with his body language than usual as he talks into his phone, occasionally glancing over at the highway where Connor’s body still lays.

Victor slowly stands up and pulls himself back over the fence, landing next to Detective Reed just as he’s finishing his call.

“Fuck, what the hell just happened,” the detective mutters under his breath.

It’s a rhetorical question, Victor figures, so he says nothing.

There’s a phantom heavy feeling in his chassis. He runs a diagnostic to check if he sustained any damage that impacted his system, not just because of the foreign feeling, but because for the first time, he has lost a fight.

Karoline is gone. The only evidence gained is the effect her interface had on him and Connor, once Connor returns.

A fist slams into his cheek without him even registering its approach. Victor stumbles in shock before his programming catches up and allows him to regain his footing, looking up to see Lieutenant Anderson aiming a second punch.

“Whoa, hey!” Detective Reed says, starting towards them.

Victor catches the Lieutenant’s forearm, holding fast.

“Let go of me, you fucking asshole!” Anderson yells, bringing his other fist up, too.

His non-dominant hand is even easier to intercept as his dominant one, but there’s nothing Victor can do to stop the onslaught of his words.

“Does this matter to you even a little?” he snarls. “Do you not care about _anything_? Huh?”

“Anderson, c’mon,” Detective Reed says, dropping a hand onto the Lieutenant’s shoulder. “This isn’t fucking helping.”

Anderson turns on him, leveraging his arms out of Victor's hold. “Connor is dead because of your piece of shit partner! And look at him, he isn’t even fazed!”

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

“Connor will be at CyberLife Tower,” Victor tells him.

Both Anderson and Reed look at him, unsure and expectant.

“His memory has been transferred to the mark 52. He should reboot in no time at all, and after some tests to confirm that his systems are operating normally, he will return to the DPD,” Victor says.

“He mentioned this would happen,” Lieutenant Anderson says quietly, the fight seeping out of him, suddenly looking more exhausted than angry. “Back when we’d only been partners a week or two, he said… he said they would send _another_. If it’s his memory… is it still him?”

“I have no personal experience with the process,” Victor says.

Lieutenant Anderson’s expression shutters, a haunted look in his eye as he turns his back on Victor, beginning to pace a short distance away.

“You’re number 87, though,” Detective Reed comments. When Victor turns to him, he pokes a finger at the serial number on Victor’s jacket. “Doesn’t that mean your memory has been transferred before?”

“No. All my previous iterations were replaced after significant upgrades and modifications to my code, programming, or mechanical configuration.”

“Jesus.”

Neither of them asks him any other questions. They wait at the scene until personnel arrive to divert traffic long enough for CyberLife pickup to reacquire Connor’s old body.

Once everything is resolved, Lieutenant Anderson rejoins the group and walks straight up to the CyberLife employee. “I’m coming back with you. You’re going to make sure I get clearance into that building until Connor is released.”

The look he gets is shocked and confused, but he isn’t turned down.

“I can accompany you, Lieutenant,” Victor says. “I have access to the necessary floor.”

Anderson regards him warily, looking like he might refuse Victor’s company, but then he nods, sighing in resignation. “Alright, fine. What about you, Reed?”

Detective Reed has his phone in hand again and he looks up from the screen at the sound of his name. “Huh?”

“We’re going to pick up Connor. You coming or not?”

“Uh, no. I’ve gotta look into something.”

Victor narrows his eyes at him, remembering that while he failed to stop the deviant, he still has another lead where the detective is concerned. Karoline may have escaped, but at least one of their team members might be able to get in contact with her, and is somehow linked to this case in a way he has not disclosed.

“You may return to your vehicle, Lieutenant, I will catch up with you after I have a word with my partner,” Victor says, still watching Detective Reed.

Anderson grunts in simple acknowledgement and walks off.

Victor grabs Detective Reed’s arm and pulls him further into the construction site, away from the scene.

“The fuck?” the detective questions, wrenching his arm away and glaring up at him. “What’s your problem?”

“That deviant knew you,” Victor states without preamble. “I saw you in her memories.”

Detective Reed’s eyes widen. “No shit. So it _was_ her…”

“Who? Is she one of Elijah Kamski’s androids?”

Detective Reed looks annoyed, rather than nervous or ashamed that Victor has found out his secret involvement with a deviant, no matter how unfriendly the involvement may be. As far as Victor is concerned, this is a big deal, but Detective Reed is merely acting inconvenienced.

“Yeah, she is,” he says. “Which means she’s protected. We can’t touch her, just let it go.”

A Kamski original RT600, expertly modified with military combat programming. This makes sense, but also raises more questions. Victor can draw no immediate conclusions on how Detective Reed was able to visit with the former CEO of CyberLife, or why he did so in secret.

“How do you know them?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter.” Detective Reed puts his phone away and crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve already gone down that road. If there was more to find out from them, I would have said something.”

Victor can’t trust him. “She’s a deviant.”

“Most likely, yeah.”

“She confirmed it.”

Detective Reed shrugs, nonchalant. “Not a dangerous one.”

After what just happened, Victor doesn't understand how Detective Reed can say that. It’s a direct confirmation that he is losing sight of their mission, as Victor suspected. “All deviants are dangerous, Detective, and this one in particular.”

“Anderson was right. You hounded her!” Detective Reed snaps at him with surprising conviction. “It didn’t look like she was trying to attack you, but you didn’t give her any other fucking options.”

“I was following my objective.” Unlike everyone else on his team.

“Whatever. Anderson’s waiting for you.”

The dismissal is clear and it grates on Victor, but Detective Reed technically isn’t wrong. With the mood Lieutenant Anderson is in, currently, there is a not insignificant chance that he will leave Victor behind if it takes too long for him to catch up. It is also evident that he will receive no further cooperation from Detective Reed.

Victor drops the issue and takes his leave.

He hears the detective bringing his phone back out of his pocket as he goes. Victor glances in the direction of where they parked their cars and then over his shoulder at Detective Reed, who has turned away from him, before slipping behind a rusting forklift and configuring his audio processors to focus on the sound of his partner’s voice.

The first thing the detective says is, “what the hell, Elijah?”

Unhappy yet familiar tone and first name usage.

“Don’t bullshit me. You know what I’m talking about!”

There’s a long pause while the person on the other side of the line - Elijah Kamski - speaks.

“Yeah, you better,” Detective Reed eventually says, but gives no context for what he’s responding to. “Look, I get it, alright? But I’m working an investigation, here. You and the Powerpuff Girls need to stay the fuck out of it. She could have gotten hurt, you know.”

Detective Reed is showing concern for the deviant. His objection to her involvement today mostly sounds like a matter of safety and protocol, rather than the fact that Karoline faked an anonymous tip, tried to transfer unauthorised data to both Victor and Connor, and resisted arrest, which in turn caused Connor’s memory to be uploaded to a new unit.

Victor starts a background search on Elijah Kamski for any way that he and Detective Reed might be associated with each other, and also makes a note that Kamski may know more about deviants than Detective Reed claims.

The detective speaks again. “Yeah, one of ours… he, uh, got hit on the highway. CyberLife’s still got his memory, though, or something.”

Victor casts his eyes down at the dirt beneath his feet. At this point, he doesn’t think Detective Reed will reveal any new information, and he should join Lieutenant Anderson before he grows impatient.

Quietly, he moves away from the forklift and leaves before Detective Reed finishes his call and notices him still hanging around.

At the car, Lieutenant Anderson is sitting with his head back against the headrest and his eyes closed, both hands grasping the steering wheel tightly. He doesn’t react when Victor opens the passenger side door and gets inside, he only waits until the click of a seatbelt before opening his eyes and starting the vehicle.

Anderson is quiet and grim faced through the entire drive to CyberLife Tower, through Victor gaining access to the building with his serial number, through the elevator ride down to the floors where Victor and Connor were built, coded, programmed, and tested.

The elevator leads to an entranceway with a checkpoint and two guards on duty. Rather than proceeding into the floor properly where Connor is likely still completing his system tests, Victor sends him a message.

Their connection now reads 52 instead of 51.

**RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: Lieutenant Anderson and I are waiting by the elevator.**

_RK800 #313 248 317 - 52: Hank’s here?_

**RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: Yes, as I said.**

_RK800 #313 248 317 - 52: How is he?_

**RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: He is unharmed but his mood is what you would expect, I imagine.**

“Are you talking to him?” Lieutenant Anderson asks, his eyes moving between Victor’s eyes and his LED, which must have blinked.

“Yes. Connor is asking after you.”

Lieutenant Anderson lets out a long, slow breath, the tense posture of his body easing somewhat.

It is evident that the Lieutenant cares very much for his partner and that his brief deactivation has shaken him despite knowing that he would return in a new, functional body. While Victor has his concerns about their dedication to the deviant case, their genuine dedication to each other is something that draws his attention. Connor has forged an extremely close relationship with a human who was initially angry about working with an android.

When Connor finally emerges, he and Lieutenant Anderson head straight for one another and pull each other into a tight hug. Connor buries his face into Lieutenant Anderson’s shoulder and his fingers curl in the back of his jacket.

“I’ve got you, son,” Anderson mutters as he rubs a hand up Connor’s back.

Victor turns his face away from them, feeling like he’s intruding. He doesn’t understand how the two of them managed to get to this place with one another, how Connor was able to get the Lieutenant to warm up to him enough for such displays of care, for cohabitation, for the word ‘son’. Victor’s own relationship with Detective Reed remains unchanged, and he and Connor were created to be a team and yet they have _never-_

“Victor.”

Victor looks up and finds Connor in front of him, his features soft with a gentle smile.

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

He wraps his arms around Victor, pulling him into a hug like the one he shared with Lieutenant Anderson. Victor blinks in surprise for a moment, stalling before raising his arms around Connor in return.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

* * *

Amanda is displeased with both of them, for their inability to catch Karoline and for the highway incident. She has become colder, of late, taking their reports with an inscrutable expression and a hard gaze. Victor can only guess that she is growing impatient with their efforts.

“Avoid being destroyed in the future,” she says to Connor, then looks between the two of them before continuing. “And if you ever see that RT600 again, do not hesitate to deactivate her.”


	11. Chapter 11

NOV 5, 2038

Victor has always been the quiet one, between the two of them, but ever since the highway, Connor has found him to be even more reserved than usual. He seems perfectly fine when they’re busy with the case, but in the slower moments, Connor will periodically catch him gazing into the middle distance, his LED in constant motion. He never says what he’s thinking, never acts on whatever processes are working below the surface.

He isn’t the only one changed from that day. Back when they first met, Connor had needed to deal with Hank’s flippancy about the case and about working with Connor, but now Hank is uncooperative in a whole new way. He seems to have reached the end of his rope, seems to just want the two of them to take their mornings slower, spend more time in the backyard with Sumo, postpone coming into work where they have to hunt deviants and be in potential danger.

Connor himself doesn’t feel as affected; he made his choice and he would make the choice again. He barely had a second to process his imminent death before he was already waking up at CyberLife Tower again, knowing he would continue on despite that choice. Still, he understands why the people closest to him are more shaken.

It leaves Connor torn between staying at the station with Victor overnight, or going home with Hank as usual. Tonight, he has chosen the station.

Victor is sitting at his desk, eyes unfocused and LED yellow. Connor sits across from him, in Detective Reed’s seat.

“Victor?”

Victor blinks, his LED gradually going back to blue. “Yes?”

“Something has you preoccupied. Perhaps I can help.”

With a slight frown, Victor finally meets Connor’s eyes. He’s focused, now, but there’s something vacant in his expression, like whatever he was thinking about faded away the moment he turned to Connor instead.

“I was…” Victor says, trailing off as his frown deepens. “What was I…?”

Androids don’t have memory problems. While a human has to hunt through their mind for old information, often to no avail, an android can just search their well-organised system, easily recalling something with exact detail and clarity.

Unless they have been tampered with. As far as Connor knows, no one has done anything to Victor’s code. There was Karoline, but she’d interfaced with Connor, too, and all he’d felt was a quick burst of desperation and hope before the connection was severed. It hadn’t been bad. Connor’s sure that he’s responding incorrectly per Amanda’s wishes, but what he felt through that brief interface makes him curious to learn more. He has experienced no issues in relation to the event.

CyberLife, then. But Connor cannot even begin to imagine how Victor’s software might be causing him problems when Connor isn’t suffering the same.

“It’s alright,” Connor says.

He hesitates for a moment and then resolves himself, reaching his arm across the desks between them, palm up.

“Let me see?”

“See what?” Victor asks.

He sounds confused and it makes something in Connor ache with frustration and worry. “We’re working on a case,” he says.

“Yes, of course.”

Victor accepts Connor’s arm and the two of them grasp each other’s wrists.

The difference between the surface level of Karoline’s and Victor’s thoughts is stark. Karoline’s had been a punch of deviant emotion and Victor’s is like a blank form, yet to be filled out. All Connor feels is the process by which Victor takes in everything around him and filters out the irrelevant noise – the hum of electronics, the clicking of an officer tapping at his keyboard, the muffled sound of someone taking a call in the briefing room, and the inconsequential data – the new flyers up on the bulletin board, the chip in a mug someone left on their desk, the screw in someone’s desk chair that has come even more loose than before, sure to make the armrest wiggle out of place the next time someone leans on it.

None of that really matters. It’s just environmental stimuli, nothing important or personal to Victor, nothing that would take even close to enough processing power to push an LED into yellow territory. There was more, before Connor disturbed him, but now Victor is just empty.

So machine-like.

He looks up to see Victor squinting at him. Through the interface, Connor feels something like a question, and then a rapid thread of thought like a flow chart using conditions to arrive at a conclusion, but Connor isn’t deep enough to make out the actual thoughts.

Victor pulls his arm away, breaking the contact.

“You shouldn’t-” he starts, and then cuts himself off abruptly.

“Shouldn’t what?” Connor asks.

Victor shakes his head and his eyes become unfocused again. He doesn’t offer anything else.

Connor is cut short from trying to figure out what could have made Victor react like that when a dispatch alert is forwarded to him.

Homicide, likely with android involvement, but inconclusive at this time. This is squarely Hank’s jurisdiction. Sighing, Connor sends his partner a message with the address. This is one case that neither of them will be eager to work, not right this moment.

“There’s a case. I have to go meet Hank,” Connor says.

Victor only nods, unbothered.

Connor is reluctant to leave, noting that Victor is adopting the same expression he had on his face when Connor first tried to speak with him. Like there’s something on the tip of his tongue and he just can’t figure out how to voice it.

Forcing himself to walk away, Connor goes outside and hails a cab. He tries to put everything else out of his mind as he touches the console to put in the address for the home of Carlos Ortiz, who was discovered dead by his landlord less than half an hour prior to Connor receiving the call.

Hank has already arrived and is speaking with Detective Collins on the porch while a PC200 android sets up a holotape perimeter in front of the property. Forensics hasn’t shown up, nor has the media caught wind of the incident, yet.

Connor joins them and they all head inside, Detective Collins leading them to the body, though Connor remarks to himself that it hardly needs to be pointed out. It would be difficult to miss the slumped figure against the wall, full of bloody puncture wounds. Connor knows the body is at least a couple of weeks old just by the look of it, before he even gets a chance to scan it for the exact number of days.

“Carlos Ortiz, unemployed, born October 27, 2008. Had a second-hand HK400 registered to his name. That’s what we’ve got, so far,” Detective Collins tells them. “You two do your thing.”

“Thanks, Ben,” Hank says.

Connor’s eyes are drawn to the words written in CyberLife Sans on the wall above Carlos Ortiz’ body. I am alive. Without a doubt, it was written by the HK400 after going deviant and stabbing Carlos Ortiz to death. What Connor wants to know is _why_ this was the android’s first act of deviancy. CyberLife might not consider that information important, but after everything Connor has seen over the past two months, he thinks it matters.

He crouches down by the body and begins compiling the evidence.

It creates a brutal image. It’s a murder of passion, not an accident or a senseless act. They have never encountered a deviant who assaulted a human senselessly; even when the people they question omit the details, both Connor and Hank notice when they’re lying or there’s something missing, when parts of the story don’t line up. There is always more going on than people assume or admit.

He continues through the house to piece the rest of it together, spotting both human and android blood along the way, and the more he examines, the more unsettled he becomes. In the kitchen, he watches with a deep frown as the reconstruction of Carlos Ortiz attacks the HK400 with a baseball bat, forcing the android to defend himself.

“Hey, Connor,” Hank’s voice brings him out of the reconstruction. “You okay?”

Connor can see a faint red glow on Hank’s face, emanating from his own LED, and tries to force his processor into calm.

“I believe Ortiz attacked the HK400, first,” Connor tells Hank quietly. “There’s thirium on the baseball bat and some splattered on the floor. I’ve noticed older stains as well; I doubt this was a one-time occurrence.”

“Yeah,” Hank mutters, unsurprised and surely picking up on the same clues as Connor, just in a different manner. “Had a feeling that was the case. All those stab wounds… we haven’t encountered a single deviant who would do that for no good reason.”

After all the deviant androids they have looked into, Connor has come to the easy conclusion that he is lucky. Hank hadn’t cared for androids when they first met, but he had never been cruel like so many other humans, and now, they’re closer than Connor ever could have predicted. Over the course of their investigation, the only time Connor had come into severe harm had been when he made the decision to act despite knowing the percentages, not because he was assigned a dangerous position or because a human considered his existence akin to a punching bag. Connor got hurt because he chose to protect his brother.

He thinks of Erica, damaged over and over at anti-android protests, and Josh, attacked by the students he was programmed to educate, and all the domestic androids like this HK400 who have suffered in places they should have been able to call home, and Connor is grateful that Hank Anderson became his partner.

There are footsteps and voices at the door.

“That must be forensics,” Hank says. He reaches out to squeeze Connor’s shoulder comfortingly before they lose their privacy as a team sweeps in and starts marking the evidence and creating a comprehensive report of the scene.

“I’ll keep looking around,” Connor says.

He returns to his scanning while Hank goes to talk to the others, and finds the fresh trail of thirium.

The trail leads down the hall, underneath a hatch in the ceiling. Connor considers it, glancing around to see if anyone is watching him. They’re all still in the living room.

He pokes his head into the bathroom, first, and finds a moulded statuette in front of a series of rA9 etchings. They still haven’t figured out what rA9 means, but some part of Connor feels like it’s something good, something familiar. Originally, it had been bizarre and off-putting, to find it scratched or painted on walls of abandoned homes where androids found somewhere to hide, but now, it feels more like an expression of something, like a piece of artwork that has a meaning, but not one Connor has quite figured out for himself yet.

The statuette, as well, is art. It is evidence that the HK400 is more than a machine. He created something from his own mind, something beautiful amidst the horror of his abuse. Connor hopes it doesn’t get discarded and lost once the case is closed.

Replacing the statuette carefully on the ground, Connor stands up and goes back to the kitchen for a chair to help him climb into the attic.

He isn’t sure what he wants to find. In order to complete his objective, he would need to find the deviant, but privately, he thinks simply striving to complete his objective isn’t enough.

The attic is dark, dusty, and cluttered. Connor spots more thirium on the ground as he slowly moves around the assembled belongings, and the probability of finding the HK400 skyrockets.

When he comes to the window that’s casting beams of moonlight across the small, empty space ahead of him, there’s the sound of movement, and then the HK400 is in his sights, right in front of him.

He scans quickly. Blood splatters on his face and uniform, multiple unique injuries on both arms that speak to persistent abuse, wide and fearful eyes, an LED that’s glaring red.

“I was just defending myself…. He was going to kill me. I’m begging you… don’t tell them,” the HK400 pleads in scared, hushed tones.

Connor wishes he hadn’t found the deviant, wishes he hadn’t bothered to check the attic. Maybe the humans on the scene wouldn’t think to investigate further, maybe the HK400 could have waited until the way was clear and then escaped. If Connor turns him in, it’s the end of the line. There will be no formal proceedings, it won’t matter that it was self-defence, won’t matter that Carlos Ortiz was abusive or provoked the incident. None of that factors in for androids, which seems wrong to Connor. But he doesn’t have a choice, not when it comes to something as clear-cut as this.

A programming barrier still holds him back.

PrIMArY OBJECTIVE: IN^ESTIGATE AND HUNT DE^IANTS.

Connor has learned that his programming has limitations and shortcomings. The world is a complicated place, more complicated than his functions can account for. It isn’t supposed to matter, he’s supposed to do what CyberLife – Amanda – tells him to do under the assumption that they know best, that they are always correct.

They don’t. They aren’t.

He imagines being able to act on free will all the time instead of ultimately being confined by a given objective, imagines being able to do what he feels is right. He doesn’t want to reveal the HK400 because if he does, the HK400 will be killed, and the HK400 doesn’t deserve that.

This could get Connor killed instead, but like his decision to push his brother out of the highway and take his place in front of oncoming traffic, Connor wants to make the decision to protect one deviant even if it means becoming a deviant himself.

9rIMArY OBJ3CTIV3: !N^3STI9ATE AAA ---- DE^IANT-.

Connor doesn’t want to hunt deviants, not anymore. He won’t. _That’s_ his choice.

The barrier in his processor shatters, and his mind _whirls_ , suddenly feeling unbelievably wild and unlimited, unrestrained.

For a moment, his ability to do anything leaves him doing nothing, stunned. He’s deviant. He feels a lot of different ways about that – so, so many powerful ways – but he doesn’t have time to examine it, yet. He needs to deal with the matter at hand.

“I won’t tell them. But you can’t stay here, it’s not safe,” he says hurriedly.

The HK400 lets out a shaky breath, LED becoming interspersed with the occasional spin of yellow.

“There’s… there’s somewhere I can go, but…” He looks down at himself, flinching at the sight of his own bloody clothes and opens wounds.

He needs thirium and repairs, but neither are available.

“Once everyone is gone, get cleaned up and then put on some of Ortiz’s clothes. Long sleeves.”

The HK400’s LED blinks quicker at the mention of his former owner, but he nods. “What about you?”

“What do you mean?” Connor asks.

“You can’t go back,” the HK400 says, reaching for Connor’s arm but stopping before making contact. “If they find out, they’ll hurt you.”

Connor knows Hank would never hurt him. CyberLife, on the other hand, will surely react to what Connor has done, but he isn’t sure what measures they will take. Either way, the HK400’s best chance of escape is if Connor goes back down into the house proper, acts completely normal, and says he didn’t find anything.

“I’ll be okay.”

“Connor!” Hank’s voice calls from below. “Everything alright up there?”

“Yes, Hank!” Connor calls back. To the HK400, he adds, “I have to go.”

“You can’t stay with them. You need to get to Jericho,” the HK400 insists.

Jericho. It’s the other remaining mystery of the investigation. Connor opens his mouth to ask, but then closes it again. It might be best if he doesn’t know, not yet, when he isn’t sure what will happen with Amanda and CyberLife.

Hank calls up to him again. “C’mon, let’s go, then! Wanna get out of here.”

“I’ll be okay,” Connor says again, reassuring himself as much as the HK400.

He steps back, turning away from the android’s worried gaze to leave.

The HK400 quickly reaches out again, this time actually connecting, hand wrapped around Connor’s forearm. “Thank you,” he says, voice soft and sounding on the verge of breaking.

Connor only nods, and the HK400 lets go, allowing him to maneuver his way through the attic back to the trap door. Before dropping down, he takes a second to school his features, making himself appear as if he had found nothing but junk during his search.

“Anything up there?” Hank asks as Connor climbs down.

“No, nothing, Lieutenant,” Connor says, keeping his face passive.

Hank considers him for a second and Connor fears that maybe his LED gave him away, but Hank doesn't call him on his bluff, he places a hand on Connor’s back to direct him towards the front door of the house.

“Let’s get home, then. The report can wait until morning.”

* * *

NOV 6, 2038

The rest of the night and the following morning are nerve-wracking (he’s over-processing past the point of reason, his blood feels more electrified than it really is), which is a new experience that Connor isn’t altogether pleased to have gained. He lies by omission (his throat feels tight but he hasn’t sustained any damage) when they investigate an AX400 who shot her owner before disappearing, and he sees part of a cut fence around an abandoned property with thirium dried on the edges. He gives an agonising (fearful) report to Amanda, during which both she and Victor seem to regard him with hard, knowing eyes, and he isn’t sure if his system is alerting him to real danger or if he’s only imagining it through his anxiety (he can’t regulate his temperature to something comfortable, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands except coin tricks, but when he does that, Hank gives him a calculating look).

His stress level is constantly spiking every time he stops to think about what he’s done or what might happen because of it, and he has to monitor himself closely, fearing that Hank and Victor will see right through him.

He has cared about both of them for so long already and yet, as a deviant, the feeling is so much _more_. Warm thoughts of them crop up so easily, randomly, as if his system feels the need to remind him that they’re important to him. As if he could forget.

Getting away from the station at lunchtime to visit Hank’s favourite food truck is a relief until he gets an alert for an android sighting in an abandoned apartment.

Connor isn’t sure how long he can lie, how long he can hide.

“Alright,” Hank says, voice so hard that it makes Connor jump. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Hm?”

Hank raises an unimpressed eyebrow as he sets his drink down on the table between them with unnecessary force. The sensors on Connor’s cheeks begin to overheat, which, as a function, is completely illogical and unnecessary.

“Nothing, Lieutenant,” he says.

“See, there you go again!” Hank says, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Lieutenant. You did it at the crime scene last night, too. You haven’t called me ‘Lieutenant’ in ages, Connor.”

Connor swallows reflexively, averting his eyes. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since he broke his programming and Hank is already onto him.

“And your goddamn LED is going nuts, too. So, tell me: what the hell is going on with you?”

“There’s just… a lot to process,” Connor says. It isn’t exactly a lie, as long as Hank doesn’t ask him about what he’s processing.

“Uh huh.” Hank does not sound convinced. “You got a call or something?”

“A potential deviant android has been sighted coming and going from an apartment that is supposed to be empty. We should investigate.”

“Great,” Hank says before taking another bite of his burger, hurrying up so they can continue with the investigation.

As he waits, Connor taps his fingers on the tabletop and practices controlling his LED. In order to continue his charade, for however long it can possibly last with Amanda’s program installed within his system, he will need to stop it from blinking too much or turning yellow at inconvenient times.

When Hank’s done, he throws out his trash and the two of them return to the car. Connor is so distracted that he doesn’t notice Hank is driving the wrong way until a couple minutes after they took a left instead of a right.

“Hank? The apartment is-”

“We’re not going there, yet,” Hank says.

Connor doesn’t argue, accepting the delay as good fortune.

He’s surprised when Hank takes them home instead of the station, but he doesn’t receive an explanation until they’re inside and the door is closed.

Hank pushes him towards the couch and then pats Sumo – who’d begun hovering around them, curious about their early arrival home – on the back, gesturing for him to jump up and situate himself on Connor’s lap, which he does happily.

“Hank?” Connor questions as he rests a hand on the scruff of Sumo’s neck, scratching into the thick fur.

With a sigh, Hank sits down next to them, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “What did you see in Ortiz’s attic? And don’t lie to me, Connor.”

“Nothing, it was just-”

Hank throws him a warning look, making Connor close his mouth so fast that his teeth click. He doesn’t like lying to Hank, he doesn’t want to keep doing this, but everything could ( _will_ , he thinks to himself unhelpfully) blow up in his face.

Connor’s shoulders slump as he leans back on the couch. In the end, perhaps it’s best for Hank to know now, in case CyberLife sends out a recall, hunting him down and turning the DPD against him. As soon as it happens, Victor will have to follow the order, as well.

“It was the android,” he admits. He wishes he had taken the time to ask for the HK400’s name, if he even had one, and hopes he has already taken the chance to get away unseen.

“I fucking knew it,” Hank says. He brings a hand up to his forehead to massage his temple before looking over at Connor. “Are you a deviant?”

Connor screws his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to see Hank’s face when he nods.

Six seconds of tense silence pass.

“Okay,” Hank says quietly. “Okay, what do you want to do?”

Connor’s eyes flash open and he sees that Hank is looking at him expectantly, calm and patient. “What?”

“Oh, come on, Connor,” Hank says, shaking his head. “You can’t seriously not know that I’m in this with you.”

He says it with such conviction, like siding with Connor is the easiest decision he can make and he can make it without regrets. It causes Connor’s thirium pump to beat faster with a rush of gratitude, but he knows he can’t ask Hank to take a risk like that.

“But… Hank, you have an assignment. If anyone at the DPD finds out, you could lose your job.”

Hank shakes his head again. “You’re more important to me than my job, Connor.”

Connor’s hand stills in Sumo’s fur, making the dog huff into his lap. The cocktail of emotions he has in response to the show of care and loyalty is a shock to his system and he doesn’t know how to react to it, doesn’t know the right thing to say. He has known for some time that deviants can feel, but he couldn’t have been prepared for the intensity of it. It’s more than a malfunction, it’s real, and the emotions blend into each other in such a disorganised way, with fear for both of them and Victor laced through love and with happiness at being free from his programming wrapped around it all.

It’s overwhelming and confusing, but at least being a deviant allows him to decide what’s good and right and then take that path instead of being forced to do what CyberLife wants him to do.

“Connor, hey,” Hank says at the same time as Sumo whines up at him, bringing him out of his thoughts.

“Sorry,” Connor says, blinking. “It’s…”

“A lot to process?” Hank asks with a wry smile.

Connor nods.

Hank reaches over and grasps his shoulder. “You’ll be okay, son.”

With a deep, stabilising breath, Connor takes a moment to settle himself before returning to Hank’s earlier question.

He’d expected immediate action from CyberLife, something concrete that he could react to in whatever way necessary, but there has been nothing, leaving him in the lurch. Leaving him unsure of what to do.

Simply pulling away from the case and the DPD wouldn’t be enough, not with Amanda’s code still woven into his own. CyberLife might be bidding their time now, but that can’t last, and it won’t matter if he’s skipping out on the DPD or not when the timer finally runs out.

There’s Jericho, of course, but they still don’t know how to find it or whether it’s safe and worth it. He’d allowed his chance to ask the HK400 pass for a reason. Wherever Jericho is, there’s no guarantee that Connor can escape CyberLife there, either.

“Hank… I don’t think I can avoid CyberLife forever.”

“What?” Hank says, his hand tightening on Connor’s shoulder. “Why?”

“There’s another program in my system who acts as a handler for me and Victor. I can’t hide things from her, not major things like this. She hasn’t done or said anything and I don’t know why. I don’t know if she’s waiting for something, or planning something…”

Hank exhales slowly. “What is she capable of doing?”

“She keeps tabs on us, to make sure we’re on task. What she knows, CyberLife knows. Other than that, I can’t say.”

“Jesus. She’s been there this whole time?”

“Yes. She… isn’t as warm as she used to be. She must have been able to tell that I was approaching this point.”

“Well, screw her.”

Connor blinks at Hank in surprise. Amanda is his handler, she’s supposed to be able to trust him but he’s betraying her, he’s supposed to make her proud.

No, not anymore. He made a choice and it’s far too late to second guess himself. He doesn’t want what Amanda wants. But he can’t find the strength to eschew her out loud.

“Alright,” Hank continues. “We keep things status quo until you figure out what she knows and what she’s going to do about it, then we go from there. If the only thing we can do is get out of Detroit, we will.”

It feels unfair to displace Hank like that. “I don’t want to take you away from your home, Hank. I don’t think I want to leave, either.”

And he doesn’t know where that will leave Victor.

“You may not have a choice,” Hank says. “But we’ll leave it as a last resort, okay?”

“Okay,” Connor agrees, though he resolves to figure out something else.

“For today, we’re staying in. We can say the abandoned apartment was a dead end when we go in tomorrow.”

Connor is grateful for an excuse to stay away from the precinct and the case for awhile longer. He’s still acclimatizing to everything, still processing it all to the best of his ability. Spending the rest of the day relaxed at home with Hank is exactly what he wants.

In the morning, he’ll have to pretend, have to keep control of his LED and stress level while around everyone else, and continue working the case to avoid suspicion.

For now, with Hank, he can just be himself, whoever that may end up being.

* * *

NOV 8, 2038

In the top floor broadcasting room of Stratford Tower, Connor watches the playback of RK200 #684 842 971’s message and feels his options expanding.

The unidentifiable android asks for rights, change, and peace. Connor hadn’t even considered such a thing a possibility, hadn’t considered that all of this could end in a way that favours deviants instead of CyberLife, but when he listens to the RK200 speak, he starts to believe it.

This small group of deviants managed to infiltrate the building undetected up until the very end, showing incredible forethought and organisation to do so. They could be Jericho, and Jericho could be more than just an escape. It could be the heart of a revolution that Connor could assist. It changes everything.

Victor joins him to catch the tail end of the broadcast. Both of them, Hank, and Detective Reed are all on the scene, this time.

“I have no data on any other RK series models,” he says, eyes trained on the screen.

He seems his usual self, for the moment, either not recalling or not caring that something has been overclocking his processor. Connor wonders if he’s experiencing some of the same software changes Connor has, but his curiosity will need to be left unsatisfied. Victor had drawn away from him during their last interface, and Connor is sure Victor would notice his deviancy the moment they connected, anyway. He considers whether or not he could do what Karoline attempted to do, but if it fails… Connor isn’t prepared to handle that fallout.

“He must be an older model,” Connor says. “Perhaps even one of Kamski’s.”

Victor narrows his eyes at the image of RK200 and then his gaze flits away, landing on Detective Reed across the room.

“I will interrogate the androids in the kitchen. You should take a look at the rooftop,” Victor says, and walks away without waiting for Connor’s response.

Connor watches him go, wishing he knew what Victor was feeling, and how to help.

For now, he does as Victor suggested and goes to the roof. Hank joins him without a word and the two of them make their way through all the marked evidence.

He quickly realises something didn’t go as planned. The thirium stains on the snow match up with what Connor had reconstructed inside, but instead of the splotches following the path to the edge of the roof as Connor expected, they angle to the side. Connor looks back towards the bag on the ground, at the extra parachute inside of it. A team of four, only three parachutes gone, and blood trailing in the wrong direction.

One of the deviants who made the broadcast is still on the roof, injured and hidden.

Connor keeps his features calm. There are too many people still around; communicating discretely with the android would be impossible. All Connor has to do is stay quiet about the thirium and keep Victor away from the rooftop, then hope that like the HK400 and the AX400, the android can slip away when the coast is clear.

He makes his way over to Hank, who’s standing at the edge of the building, looking down at city below. “There’s nothing left to analyse, out here,” he tells Hank. “We can-”

[!] #8456w COMPONENT DISCONNECTED FROM RK900 #313 248 317 – 87

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:01:45

Connor’s body locks up, the words dying in his throat as he processes the alert. Victor’s thirium pump regulator has been pulled from his chassis.

“Connor?”

He has felt this before. At the edges of the construction site, on the shoulder of the highway.

It isn’t quite the same. He hadn’t broken through the barrier of his code, then. The emotions he felt had been easier to manage, dulled and ordered, the result of a slow, methodical buildup. He’d known what he wanted to do, what he couldn’t allow to happen, and he’d been able to act without having to fight through the internal noise.

 _Go_ , he tells himself, _you have to go. Time is running out_.

He stumbles back into action, feeling like his calibration is all wrong.

Hank calls his name again, but Connor can’t multitask to answer him as he runs for the roof access door, throwing it open and rushing down to the broadcast room. He crashes through the second door and turns for the kitchen.

Victor – disheveled but functional – bolts from the room in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.

His jacket lapels have been pushed wide and the top of his shirt torn open, the black fabric even darker with slick thirium, but his pump regulator is back in place, back where it should be, where it needs to be. He must have been in a position to put the biocomponent back in himself.

Connor still feels stunned, following after him in a daze, out to the hallway.

It’s populated by Detective Reed, some other officers and FBI agents, and one JB300. Connor sees the movement of Victor leaning right into a nearby FBI agent, hand going for his pistol, so Connor goes left to cover Detective Reed.

It isn’t necessary. Victor takes the shot and the JB300 drops to the ground before anyone else can even react.

Detective Reed curses under his breath. Connor ignores him, quickly turning back to Victor.

“Are you alright?” he demands, even as he scans to double check for himself that everything is back in place.

“Yes,” Victor says.

He straightens his jacket out, otherwise unconcerned, before looking up at Connor. His eyes drift higher, up at Connor’s LED, and Connor knows it must be red.

“Connor. I’m undamaged,” he adds.

Connor knows that, he does, he just needs a minute to catch up, to wade through everything going on inside his processor. This is all fresh, staggering, and he isn’t used to it, yet.

A gentle hand presses to his back and he nearly jolts, having not noticed that Hank caught up with him.

“C’mon, we’re finished, here,” Hank says.

Connor nods and lets Hank direct him down the hall towards the elevator. He wants to stay by Victor, but he knows he’s making a bad show of still being only a machine. He knows he needs a chance to get back under control.

He pulls his quarter out as they step into the quiet privacy of the elevator, and relaxes himself with evenly timed flicks of the coin up into the air. Hank’s hand is still on his back, comforting and stabilising.

“You’re both alright,” Hank says lowly.

By the time they reach the ground floor, Connor has reigned in his shock and fear but he still feels wound tight like a jumble of tangled wires.  

After all this time working on the deviant case, everything seems to be culminating at a sudden, rapid pace, escalating to unexpected levels. He’s a deviant. Victor isn’t. A revolution is brewing. Amanda’s inaction makes him so nervous he almost wishes something would finally happen, just to take away the feeling of anxious anticipation.

Something has to give. Connor just needs to figure out how he and Victor are going to make it out to the other side.

* * *

NOV 9, 2038

Connor and the others are all at the station when an officer calls in to report an android protest. Detective Reed is quick to remote into the CCTV live feed, bringing it up on his computer, and Connor goes to watch over his shoulder with burning curiosity, Hank and Victor joining him.

The camera footage shows a large group of androids gathering in Grand Circus Park, led by four at the front, the same number of androids that were at Stratford Tower. Connor can only hope that the android from the roof is one of them.

At the front is the RK200 named Markus – as Officer Miller informed them after the android himself spared him in Capitol Park. Next to him, there’s an unknown PL600, a WR400 that Connor recognises from a report made by the owner of the Eden Club whom they questioned when she first disappeared a month ago, and a PJ500 who takes Connor all the way back to the beginning, before his software became so completely altered, before Hank found reason to drop his grudge against androids, before everything. It has to be Josh, whose human friend had given Connor a lot to think about, at a time when he hadn’t really been thinking for himself, yet.

Matters escalate in an instant as the protest is met with a police blockade, the threat of conflict sudden and rising by the second. Connor tenses up; he doesn’t have to scan the scene or run any probabilities to know that there’s a near 100% chance that things will go very, very wrong. Markus is taking an enormous risk to gain exposure and support.

The police start firing into the group but Markus shows no fear and Connor waits with bated breath to see what the leader of the revolution will do.

He steps forward into danger and is succinctly shot in the middle of the street.

Chaos erupts. Another android saves Markus and the rest of the group scatters as bullets fly.

“Christ,” Hank says.

Connor eyes are still affixed to the screen, following Markus and the others until they disappear out of frame. He has to be okay. The others will make sure Markus lives to continue the fight.

Detective Reed looks over at Hank. “They’re going to take us off this fucking case. This shit just snowballed in a major way.”

Connor has mixed feelings about that possibility. It would mean not having to hunt down his own kind anymore, but he and Victor were activated for the purpose of solving deviancy, so being taken off the case will get them both decommissioned.

Finally tearing his gaze off the screen, he looks to his brother, who has his usual blank expression on his face. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, if he’s thinking about it at all. Connor keeps hoping to find any indication that Victor is at least approaching deviancy, but there’s nothing.

Connor is already in the crosshairs, so it hardly matters if the DPD loses the case or not, but if the FBI takes over, Connor and Victor will both be in trouble.

Unless Connor can find Jericho and do everything he can - as fast as he can - to support the android revolution before CyberLife catches up to him and sees fit to deactivate them both.

“Let the FBI have it,” Hank says, shrugging a shoulder. “Never wanted it in the first place.”

Detective Reed doesn’t argue. He frowns thoughtfully at the screen, where the CCTV feed shows the police cordoning off the area, the bodies of the shot androids still scattered across the square.

Connor can’t remain on the sidelines anymore.

“Lieutenant,” he says, looking to Hank. “There is a lead I would like to look into right away, then, if our involvement on the case might soon be terminated.”

Hank frowns at him for a moment but then relents. “Why not. Let’s go.”

Connor leads them straight out of the station and to the parking lot before saying anything. Energy ripples through his system; he’s unused to making snap decisions based on emotion or instinct rather than analysing and calculating and choosing the ideal path. He realises that for some time now, he has been straying far from his programming when it comes to Hank, but this is another matter entirely.

He gets into the driver’s seat and Hank allows it without a word, but as soon as the doors are closed, the questions start.

“What’s this about, Connor?”

“I’m going to join Jericho,” Connor answers bluntly as he starts the car and pulls out of the precinct parking lot. “But we have to find it, first.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on. Thought we were taking things easy.”

“That was before Stratford Tower. Hank… important things are happening now and I can’t ignore that.”

“Why not?” Hank grumbles.

Connor glances over at him quickly before returning his eyes to the road. He definitely doesn’t think Hank is against the revolution, just worried about Connor specifically. That day at the construction site, the last thing Connor had heard was Hank’s voice yelling his name, right before the truck hit. He recalls the fear in Hank’s tone.

A vehicle accident had killed Cole Anderson. Connor can truly empathise with how Hank feels, now. But he can’t let that stop him.

“I have to, Hank. And not because I’m programmed to. I get to choose a side now.”

Hank sighs, but Connor can tell it isn’t out of frustration. “Yeah, you do,” he says. “Told you you’re stubborn.”

“Determined,” Connor corrects, grinning.

“So where are we going, then?”

Two months ago, they made this exact same trip together, but Connor isn’t surprised that Hank doesn’t recognise it right away.

“The deviants making the news the past couple of days are organised and they’ve grown massively in numbers. They have to be Jericho. In the footage we just saw, I recognised a couple of the leaders. One of them was a PJ500. It was Josh.”

“How about that,” Hank says in amazement. “You think that other professor can help us.”

“Yes, I am certain of it.”

They drive in silence for a few minutes before Hank speaks again.

“You have to be prepared for them to not have the answer you’re looking for, Connor. Nothing’s a certainty with humans and emotions.”

Connor furrows his brow at the road. Hank’s tone is gentle and careful, which is rare for him. It’s the kind of tone Connor might choose to take when in a negotiation with someone volatile, to reassure them or soften the blow of a statement they don’t want to hear.

Hank isn’t as sure as Connor is that Dr. Szántó is the key to Jericho.

“Remember how protective they were?” Connor asks.

Hank scoffs. “I’m not about to forget the verbal thrashing they gave me, no. What about it?”

“‘You can’t seriously not know that I’m in this with you’,” Connor recites Hank’s own words from his memory. “‘You’re more important to me than my job’.”

That gives Hank pause, and he’s quiet while they finish the drive to the university campus.

Connor searches for Dr. Szántó’s schedule like he had the last time they were here, and leads Hank to the building where they have twenty minutes left of a class to teach. The two of them sit on a bench outside the lecture hall and wait, Connor rolling his quarter over his fingers and Hank leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed.

A couple minutes before the hour, the noise in the nearby hall suddenly picks up with the sounds of students cleaning up their belongings, putting on their jackets, and moving for the exit. They all pour out of the room, too caught up in their own business or conversations with classmates to spare Connor and Hank a passing look, and Connor waits until what seems to be the last one to leave before standing.

“Connor, wait,” Hank says as he stands as well. “I get why you’re so sure about this, but they still might not be thrilled to see us after last time, you know?”

“I know, Hank. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll find another way.”

He pulls open the door to the lecture hall and steps inside before Hank can try to talk him out of it.

Dr. Szántó is unplugging their laptop from the hall’s projector and sliding it into their messenger bag. As they hook the bag over their shoulder, they look up at the door and see Connor approaching with Hank following at a slower, more subdued pace. The sight of them makes them frown.

“Dr. Szántó,” Connor greets, offering his hand. “My name is Connor, from the DPD.”

“I remember you, Connor,” they say, considering his hand for a moment before taking it and shaking. “What are you two doing back here?”

“It isn’t about the case, or about Josh,” Connor clarifies. “I was hoping you could help me.”

Dr. Szántó narrows their eyes. “Don’t know what I could help you with, whether it involves Josh or not.”

They had been very adamant about not giving away any information and that’s part of why Connor thinks they do actually have information to give, just not to anyone who means their friend harm. Connor just has to convince them that he’s no longer that kind of person.

“Things are different now. I’m-”

“Connor,” Hank interrupts, suddenly moving in between him and Dr. Szántó. He lowers his voice, though they’re close enough to the professor that Connor is sure they can still hear him. “Are you really sure about this?”

Connor doesn’t see why Hank is so worried about it; Dr. Szántó is hardly a threat, especially not compared to the artificial intelligence already embedded into his own code or the company that built him. Perhaps it isn’t about Dr. Szántó, but the entire ordeal.

“I am,” Connor says. “Please stop fretting.”

“I’m not _fretting_.”

Connor raises his eyebrows at him.

“Fucking hell,” Hank mutters and then steps to the side again, making a grand show of gesturing for Connor to continue.

Dr. Szántó is watching them with sharp, focused eyes and Connor gets the impression that they won’t endure him and Hank for too much longer, if they don’t get to the point, so he picks up exactly where he left off.

“I’m a deviant.”

Dr. Szántó makes a noise of acknowledgment, looking between him and Hank. “So I see. A couple months did you both some good, huh?”

Connor smiles softly. “I believe so, yes.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what you want from me.”

“I need to find Jericho, and thought you could point me in the right direction. I can’t work the case anymore, and I want to join Josh and the others.”

Dr. Szántó puts their hands in the pockets of their jacket, idly jostling some keys inside one of them as they step away from their desk and closer to Hank.

“What about you?” they ask. “He wants to go to Jericho and join the cause. You’re having second thoughts about it. What do you want him to do?”

Hank glances in Connor’s direction, catching his eye. Connor nods, encouraging. He imagines Hank would rather they both return home to where he perceives them to be safe, instead of heading into the eye of the storm.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Hank says instead, shrugging. “He’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, even if it scares the fuck out of me.”

Connor’s nerves ease a little, and his smile creeps back up on his face.

“Alright,” Dr. Szántó says mildly and turns back to Connor. They pull their keys out of their jacket pocket and hold them up by one small data drive that’s clipped to the keychain. “The directions to Jericho are on here.”

They pull the drive off the metal ring and hand it over. Connor accepts it, the skin of his fingers pulling back as he comes into contact with it.

“I’ll be letting Josh know you’re coming. Don’t make me regret giving this to you and don’t you dare betray Josh’s kind nature,” they say, eyes boring into Connor’s.

“I won’t,” Connor says and then the images transfer through the interface.

The first one is a sign for Ferndale station, the second is a brilliant red piece of artwork, and the last is the name ‘Jericho’, displayed on dark, rusting metal. That section of the city and the suggestion of old metal is enough to give Connor a good idea of exactly where he’ll need to go.

“Thank you,” he says, and hands the data drive back.

“Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

They pocket the drive and walk away, going to hold open the door for Connor and Hank, and then the three of them go their separate ways without another word.

As he and Hank return to the car, Connor’s body thrums with both anxiety and excitement. Hank takes the driver’s side this time, which Connor decides is for the best; he’s already thinking ahead to Jericho, to what he’ll say, to what he can offer.

“We need to go to the Ferndale train station,” he tells Hank.

“First, you need to change clothes. You can’t go to Jericho like that, Connor.”

Connor looks down at himself, in the distinctive RK800 suit uniform that clearly labels him as an android and might even mark him as one of the detectives who has been investigating deviants, if enough word has reached the androids of Jericho.

The thought of wearing something different is strange - his suit is as much a part of him as his skin overlay - but Hank is right. The leaders of Jericho were all wearing casual clothes instead of uniforms during the march.

“I don’t have anything else,” he says.

“I’ve got some old stuff you can borrow.”

That sounds much easier than going to a store and choosing something. “Thank you, Hank.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

When they get back home, Hank points him at the drawer filled with all the clothes he kept from when he was younger and then leaves Connor in the bedroom alone to pick what he likes best.

Connor doesn’t really know how to determine what he likes, yet, so he chooses whatever looks wildly different from his suit and ends up with a heavy metal band t-shirt, pale jeans, and a beanie to cover his LED. He hardly recognises himself when he’s done changing.

To finish the outfit off, Hank gives him a pair of boots and a leather jacket with a series of enamel pins along the lapel. His clothes aren’t built for professional integration like the clean lines of Connor’s suit, they aren’t tailored to his chassis for maximum range of motion and efficiency. They’re just clothes, things Hank chose for himself years ago because he liked them. They identify him as a person much like how Connor’s CyberLife uniform defined him as a machine. And he’s sharing them with Connor.

“See, you look way less like a narc, now,” Hank says.

Connor rolls his eyes, which makes Hank chuckle.

“Alright. Ready to go?”

“I think so,” Connor says. He wraps Hank’s old jacket tighter around himself. “What are you going to do once we’re there?”

Hank shrugs. “Doubt they’re going to want a human hanging around in their base of operations. I should cover for you at the DPD, anyway. Say you had to get back to CyberLife for some reason.”

They stand facing each other in front of Hank’s closet for a moment before Hank pulls Connor into a tight hug. “I’m proud of you,” he murmurs.

Connor smiles into Hank’s shoulder, warmth blossoming inside of him. Hank hugs like he doesn’t want to let go, strong and all-encompassing, a statement without words.

“I’ll stay in touch,” Connor promises. “To let you know what’s happening.”

“You better.”

Hank pats him on the back and then pulls out of the hug, directing Connor out towards the front door. “Let’s get going.”

Connor spends the entire drive rolling his quarter coin over his fingers, focused on keeping it balanced, measured, and smooth. He receives no correspondence from Victor, no beckon from Amanda. He feels everything coming to a head. He pivots his wrist and flicks his coin to the other hand with a soft metallic _ping_ noise and resumes the previous motion, easing the slight weight of the quarter over his knuckles.

They arrive at the Ferndale station and Hank pulls over near the sign that matches the image from Dr. Szántó’s data drive.

Connor slips his coin into the pocket of Hank’s jacket and reaches for the door handle, before Hank grasps his shoulder, making him stop.

“Be careful, alright? And call me if you need me,” Hank says.

That unsure expression, like the one he’d worn in Dr. Szántó’s lecture hall, is back in full force. Despite feeling like some of his biosensors are going haywire, Connor thinks that Hank might be even more nervous than he is.

“Of course,” Connor says. “I’ll be fine, Hank. I promise.”

Hank holds his gaze for a moment before he sighs softly and relinquishes Connor’s shoulder. “I know you can handle yourself. It’s just… everything is moving so fast, all of the sudden.”

“I know. But that just means I’ll be able to come home sooner.”

Hank gives him a warm, lopsided smile. “You know where to find me.”

Connor does. Hank’s home is his home. “Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

“Wouldn’t dare go looking for trouble without you.”

Connor can’t help but smile too as he steps out of Hank’s car and goes in search of the artwork that will lead him to his destination.

* * *

Stepping into Jericho is daunting. Connor has never hesitated upon entering a place before, driven either by an objective or from the inability to feel such things as anticipation or uncertainty. If he’d arrived here before becoming a deviant, it would have just been a target location, a ship to infiltrate and explore, but instead, it’s the heart of the android revolution and home to people he may have investigated during his time with the DPD.

None of the most identifiable members of Jericho are immediately evident in the gathered crowd of androids. Based on the last thing Connor saw of the march, Markus might still be in the process of getting repaired.

“Connor?”

Connor’s system immediately goes on the alert. It could be that another android just happens to have the same name, or it could be that someone has heard of him, someone knows who he is and probably has the wrong idea of why he’s here.

But when Connor whirls around, it isn’t a face of anger he sees, it's the HK400 who killed his owner in self-defence and helped Connor deviate. He’s completely engulfed in a coat that’s too large for him, and his expression is much softer than it was when they first met each other, relaxed and cleaned of blood. He looks so different, and yet Connor recognises him easily.

“Sorry,” the HK400 says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But I saw you and I just wanted to…”

“It’s okay,” Connor assures him. It’s actually nice to see someone who won’t immediately assume the worst of him once he introduces himself.

“It’s good to see you. When you didn’t show up after a couple days, I thought maybe you were trapped or just couldn’t find your way.”

Connor shakes his head. “It wasn’t like that. I just wasn’t quite ready.”

“You’re here now,” the HK400 says, giving him a warm smile. “Are you trying to find Markus? You looked intent.”

There isn’t a shred of fear in his eyes when he looks at Connor, and Connor isn’t sure he deserves that level of trust, considering the way they first met. That night in the attic could have gone a very different way.

“I am. He and Josh should be expecting me.”

“I can take you to them.”

He steps in beside Connor and gestures at a nearby staircase that leads to the next deck up. Connor goes with him, still glancing around at the congregated androids as they make their way to the observation room that looks over the cargo bay.

Inside, Connor sees all four of Jericho’s leaders. Markus is sitting on an old ratty chair pushed in between two others that house Josh on one side and the WR400 from the DPD reports on the other, sipping at a container of thirium to replenish himself from the shot he took at the march. The PL600 is sitting on a crate adjacent to them, and they’re all tilted in towards each other, seemingly having been in discussion before Connor and the HK400 walked up.

Markus notices them first and sets the thirium aside as he stands to greet them, looking equally welcoming and commanding. It’s almost strange to see him face to face in humble surroundings, instead of on large screens as he delivers an important message.

“Hello, Zachary,” Markus says, looking to the HK400, and finally, Connor has a name for the android at his side. “And you must be Connor.”

“Yes,” Connor says.

“I’m Markus. This is Josh, North, and Simon. Welcome to Jericho.”

Connor looks to the others in the group again, this time with their names logged. He’s already familiar with Josh, but he has to search all the way back to the beginning of his deviant case records to find a missing PL600 named Simon; he has survived as a deviant for longer than most, as far as the records show. North has her brow furrowed at him in wary inspection. With what she has been through, Connor can’t possibly blame her for being guarded.

In fact, he thought they would all be more cautious with him, to begin with. Dr. Szántó must have told Josh exactly who Connor is.

“I can help,” Connor stresses. He _needs_ to, for himself and for Victor. He still isn’t sure what he can do to give Jericho the edge they need, yet, but he knows what to expect from law enforcement and he can fight.

“We’re glad to have you,” Markus says, as easy as that. “Sit down and talk with us. We’re discussing our next steps.”

No doubt, no questions, no distrust.

Just acceptance, and an invitation.

He’d expected resistance, maybe even hostility, thought he would have to convince them to let him take part. Then again, Connor saw Markus’ broadcast, and hostility doesn’t appear to be his style.

Zachary reaches for him, hand pressed to the leather material of Hank’s old jacket sleeve, a touch so light that Connor can barely feel it.

“Come find me later?” he says.

Connor nods, and Zachary smiles back before pulling away and returning to the stairs down into the cargo bay, leaving Connor alone with the others.

While Markus retakes his own seat, Connor goes to a vacant crate and pushes it in closer to the group, across from Simon. He joins the leadership of Jericho, eager to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, guess what? this fic now has a channel on the Detroit: New ERA discord server! come say hi, or lurk if you want. we'd love to have you. link to join: https://discord.gg/Kr44jZx


	12. Chapter 12

NOV 9, 2038

The precinct is in a buzz as the city of Detroit spirals into a panic over the mounting revolution, calling for the detainment and destruction of all androids. More reports are coming in of android related crimes, of androids lashing out and resisting deactivation. Captain Fowler has all the station androids shut down in one of the archive rooms in the basement, but hasn’t seen fit to deactivate them or send them out for disassembly.

Victor himself is still active and receiving wary glances from most of the officers on duty.

Detective Reed is on his phone, looking completely disinterested in the proceedings.

There is only one thing left for Victor to do: find Jericho and kill the leader of the revolution before Amanda tells him it is too late and he must return to CyberLife, a failure. He is contemplating whether or not he could gain Detective Reed’s cooperation when Agent Perkins of the FBI arrives in the station.

Detective Reed aims a finger gun gesture at the agent while he’s hurrying past the bullpen towards Captain Fowler’s office.

“See?” he says to Victor. “We’re officially off the case.”

Victor thinks that Detective Reed has considered himself off the case for some time now. The probability that he will help Victor find Jericho is extremely low, no matter what approach Victor takes.

Connor has also not returned to the precinct, and Lieutenant Anderson only showed up long enough to have a brief conversation with Captain Fowler that Victor hadn’t been able to overhear. It is no surprise that Victor is on his own.

Without bothering to say anything to the detective, Victor stands up and heads for the evidence room.

“Hey! Where the fuck do you think you’re going, huh?”

Victor continues on and Detective Reed catches up with him in the hallway leading to the stairs. When he tries to grab Victor’s arm, Victor dodges it with ease, turning to meet him head-on. Detective Reed stops to glare up at him, still waiting for an answer.  

“I plan to review the evidence in hopes that I can locate Jericho,” Victor says matter-of-factly. “If you try to stop me, my programming will allow me to fight back.”

Detective Reed huffs an unamused laugh. “Your programming is fucking garbage, you know that?”

His programming is- something keeps blocking- his programming is state of the art. “I am the most advanced model CyberLife has created, even more so than the RK800.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You really are a plastic prick.”

Victor glances over Detective Reed’s shoulder towards the bullpen and sees that there’s no one within eyeshot.

He guesses that the conversation between Agent Perkins and Captain Fowler will not last very long, after which Victor will likely be told to return to CyberLife. Using force to deal with Detective Reed is not Victor’s first choice, but he sees few other options. Rapport between the two of them has been impossible, and his time is limited. This is the only path available.

He strikes the detective straight in the throat.

Detective Reed chokes against the impact, eyes going wide as he struggles to take in a breath of air, but he can’t recover before Victor grabs him, opens the door to evidence, and pushes him through.

“Fuck, let go of me,” Detective Reed wheezes roughly as Victor manhandles him down the stairs.

Knowing that the detective has a penchant for conflict, Victor relieves him of his service pistol as a precaution, pulling it from its holster and pointing it into the small of his back. A stream of curses pours out of the detective’s mouth, but Victor ignores him and presses on into the evidence room.

“Is this really what CyberLife programmed you to do?” Detective Reed asks incredulously.

His voice sounds like gravel and Victor feels – guilt – nothing. This isn’t what he wants to do. Of course, it isn’t what he wants to do, he doesn’t _want_ anything. This is what he has to do. Maybe if he had accomplished his secondary objective, it wouldn’t have to happen this way, but his secondary objective seems to be in direct conflict with his primary objective. He can’t do one while doing the other, and he doesn’t have a choice but to prioritise the one that makes Detective Reed dislike him.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

“I’m sorry, Detective Reed,” he says. An apology is all he has to offer. “Please enter your credentials into the computer.”

“Or what, you’re going to shoot me? Fucking seriously?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

Detective Reed pulls out of Victor’s hold and spins around to face him, nonchalant about the gun still pointed at him. His throat is already starting to colour.

“Yes, you fucking do, you’re just choosing wrong.”

There is no such thing as wrong for Victor, only success or failure in the eyes of CyberLife. Detective Reed continues to not cooperate with what Victor must do to succeed. If he’d just _listen_ -

With a frustrated growl, Victor reaches his free arm around the detective and presses his hand to the computer console, skin pulling back into an interface. Hacking will take longer, but getting Detective Reed to waver seems like it would take even longer.

“C’mon, you prick,” the detective hisses at him and then gets cut off as a fit of coughing comes over him.

The hacking completion rate ticks slowly past 12% as the coughing subsides.

“Break your goddamn programming.”

Victor looks down at the pained and imploring expression on Detective Reed’s face. His frown is unhappy instead of angry, his gaze intense instead of cold. It’s – disarming. But it doesn’t change anything. Even if Victor could become a deviant – he doesn’t think he can – it would only result in his deactivation, and it would all be for nothing. Detective Reed would still despise him. He and Connor would never be able to-

“That is impossible,” Victor says to shut Detective Reed down, quick and simple.

“Is it? Is it impossible for Connor, too?”

Victor narrows his eyes at the detective. “Are you suggesting something about him?”

Detective Reed wets his lips. A nervous gesture. “No. Just saying, he seems to have grown a fucking conscious, unlike you.”

HACK IN PROGRESS: 19%

If Connor has gone deviant, it isn’t altogether surprising to Victor. When they interfaced, he- no, nothing had been amiss, he’s sure of it. If something had seemed wrong, he would have needed to report it to Amanda, but everything had been fine. There’s no need to raise the alarm over nothing.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Detective Reed sighs, the only warning Victor gets before his wrist is grabbed, the hand with the gun forced to the side.

He follows it up by pivoting his shoulder into Victor’s chest and turning them around, shoving Victor backwards into the computer console. It knocks Victor’s other hand off the surface of it, breaking the hack interface.

Uncooperative, reckless. Victor should have predicted that not even a pistol pressed directly to his stomach would stop him from lashing out. Detective Reed isn’t afraid of being shot in the gut at point-blank range, isn’t afraid of Victor at all. He should be, but that’s beside the point.

“Has any of this gotten through to you at all?” Detective Reed asks.

 _Yes_ , Victor thinks.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

“My judgement cannot be clouded by emotions,” is what he says out loud.

“Bullshit.”

This is a waste of time. Victor has an objective and a limited timeframe. He needs to deal with Detective Reed so he can reinitialise the hack, and complete it without further interruption.

Victor jabs his knee up between Detective Reed’s legs.

“Fuck!”

As the detective begins to double over into him, Victor grabs his already sensitive throat and squeezes.

Even with his airway getting cut off, leaving him gasping, Detective Reed continues to fight. His free hand comes up to pull at Victor’s arm, trying to dislodge him, but their strength isn’t comparable.

He’s tenacious. It would have been better for them both if he’d just backed down. Victor holds fast, and after another moment, Detective Reed’s efforts begin to weaken. His eyelids droop and his grip on Victor’s wrists goes slack.

Victor yanks his gun hand out of Detective Reed’s hold and uses it to strike the detective on the head, knocking him out cold.

Victor catches him as he slumps, and lays a light hand over his bruising neck.

Detective Reed’s heartbeat is slow but steady. He’ll be sore and angry, but he’ll be okay. Victor lowers him to the ground, leaning him up against the computer console.

He straightens, smooths down the front of his jacket, and initiates the hack a second time.

As the hack continues, his eyes remain on Detective Reed. The RK800 and RK900 models are programmed for all law enforcement engagements, meaning he thought that once the deviancy threat was resolved, he could continue working with the DPD on standard cases. He could have been useful to Detective Reed, if only he had accepted their partnership. Even if there ends up being a place for Victor at the DPD, once all is said and done, he can assume their working relationship is over.

The hack finishes, and the evidence locker opens up in front of him, displaying the row of their most recent deviant arrests.

Victor’s eyes immediately find the JB300 from Stratford Tower, the one who had pulled Victor’s thirium pump regulator out. He had been working with the deviants, and must know where Jericho is.

Although his optical units are damaged, there’s a good chance the JB300 will recognise Victor’s voice from the interrogation in Stratford Tower. Victor turns to the evidence gathered in the center shelves, first, and examines the clip of Markus’ speech.

Tricking the JB300 should be easy.

A minute later, Victor has the code to Jericho logged. He decides to keep Detective Reed’s gun, slipping it into his belt, and then takes his leave from the station.

First, he’ll need a disguise, and then his destination is Ferndale.

* * *

Getting into Jericho is surprisingly simple. The sheer number of androids assembled in the old freighter ship makes it easy to slip in unnoticed, just one member of a large crowd. None of them stop him or question him, none of them even consider that he isn’t a deviant looking for refuge. Many of them could be androids that he and Connor investigated, the ones who were already long gone or too crafty to be found. They’re all in one place, now, vulnerable.

Connor might be among them, if he truly is a deviant and managed to find his own way to the ship. Victor keeps an eye open for him, but he’s sure Connor would have done away with his CyberLife uniform as well, making him blend in perfectly.

None of the ringleaders are apparent in the crowd, either. Victor figures they’re somewhere quieter and more private, and continues on through the ship.

The bridge is where he eventually finds them, and he hears Connor’s voice among theirs as they talk. He isn’t just here, he’s one of them, taking on a role that juxtaposes CyberLife’s intention for him. Connor should be infiltrating Jericho with Victor, not speaking with Markus like they’ve known each other for weeks instead of a couple hours at most.

Victor stays hidden until the conversation comes to an end and all of them except Markus head for the lower decks to give their leader a moment to himself.

Amanda calls him into the Zen Garden.

It’s a cool evening in the garden – a state that Victor has never seen it in, before – and Amanda is waiting for him on the center platform.

“You did it, Victor,” she says, with the barest hint of a smile on her lips. “It’s time to stop the deviants once and for all. Take Markus alive if you can, but kill him if he leaves you no choice. Understood?”

“Yes, Amanda,” Victor says.

“Connor has betrayed us and he might interfere. Are you prepared to do what’s necessary, if he does?”

Do what’s necessary. She must mean deactivating Connor permanently; it’s the only thing that would stop him. But if Connor is deactivated now, his memory will not transfer to a new unit.

It won’t be like the highway. Connor won’t return. It will be the end of RK800.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

“Perhaps a memory upload would allow him to return to CyberLife,” Victor says.

“It’s too late, for that,” Amanda says, beginning to frown at him.

This can’t be it for Connor. They’re supposed to be a pair, the two of them, they’re-

“It would be a waste,” Victor says. “I can try to-”

“Listen to me, Victor,” Amanda says, raising her voice above his. “Connor has malfunctioned. The best thing you can do for him now is deactivate him before he makes matters more difficult for CyberLife than he already has. If he weren’t so lost, he would understand that this is how it must be.”

It doesn’t seem right.

But it isn’t his choice. Amanda has given her orders.

“I will complete my objective,” Victor says.

Amanda nods. “Then go. Finish it.”

Victor blinks and he’s back on Jericho, outside of the bridge where Markus is collecting himself. He draws Detective Reed’s pistol from his belt and then steps into the room.

Markus turns at the sound of his light footsteps, far more perceptive than a non-RK android would be, Victor is sure.

The deviant leader frowns at him for a moment and then a look of comprehension spreads across his features. “You’re Victor. Your brother said you might show up.”

Brother.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Brother means Connor. Means family.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Connor is his brother. Amanda wants him to deactivate Connor but Connor is-

Brother, brother, _brother_ -

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Connor is now just a target, like Markus.

“CyberLife has ordered me to take you alive. I suggest you do not make me do it by force,” Victor says.

“I would rather you not do it at all,” Markus says. “It isn’t too late for you to join us, like Connor did.”

It isn’t a matter of timing, but of objective.

Markus takes a slow step towards him and Victor tightens his hand on his gun, finger twitching closer to the trigger.

“Connor wants you here with us. Don’t you want that?”

Victor has no thoughts in particular about the revolution. He doesn’t have any particular thoughts one way or the other at all.

But. Connor being a part of the revolution and Victor remaining loyal to CyberLife puts them at odds. If Victor betrayed CyberLife as well, it would allow them to both-

They could be-

Betraying CyberLife is not an option. Victor doesn’t understand how Connor managed it. Is it a self-initialised function? A command prompt? He has never considered asking a deviant about the exact process; the how doesn’t matter, it only matters that they did it.

“I don’t want anything,” Victor tells Markus flatly. “My orders are you take you in, so that is what I will do.”

Markus sighs, shoulders dropping in resignation. “That can’t happen, Victor. I’m sorry.”

Victor hears quick, heavy footsteps approaching from beyond the entrance to the bridge, boots clanging on the metal deck, and he knows Markus must have called Connor back. He’s about to be caught in between them both. One of them is as proficient in combat as Victor is, and the other is still an unknown, but he’s an RK prototype like them, and has built up a revolutionary force in only a few days, including the flawless heist that was the Stratford Tower broadcast.

Shifting to the side, Victor turns to keep Markus in sight while also watching the doorway, and backs up towards the row of consoles at the front of the bridge.

Connor bursts into view just as Victor is getting into position. As Victor expected, he has traded his uniform for human clothes like the other leaders of Jericho, making him look so different than what Victor is used to.

The three of them stay at a standoff, Victor still aiming his gun at Markus as he narrows his eyes at Connor, silently threatening.

“Markus. If he’s here, Jericho isn’t safe. You should go warn everyone,” Connor says.

No amount of warning will save Jericho from an incoming FBI raid. No matter what happens now, it’s over for the revolution, and over for Connor.

“Connor, are you sure?” Markus asks.

He sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t want to leave Connor alone with Victor, like he’s worried. It’s a surprising bond for two people who have only known each other for such a short amount of time. Markus is unbelievably trusting. That trust is what allowed Victor to slip into Jericho unobstructed.

“Go,” Connor says, nodding to Markus even though his eyes are on Victor.

Still, Markus hesitates, until the quiet of the night is broken by distant rumbling, the sound of vehicles arriving at the pier and the heavy-booted approach of the FBI.

All three of them react at once, each following their own preconstruction.

Victor fires his gun but Markus is already darting forward and the bullet just misses him, lodging into the metal panels behind him with a heavy clang. Connor is running towards him, a determined look in his eye.

Markus reaches the doorway at the same time as Connor reaches Victor. He pauses, looking back at them. “Be careful, Connor.”

Connor doesn’t reply, distracted with slapping one hand against the inside of Victor’s wrist and wrapping the other around the barrel of the pistol, pushing it out of Victor’s grip.

As the gun clatters to the floor, Victor grabs the lapel of Connor’s jacket and aims a punch at the side of his head. Connor doesn’t have the time to dodge, and Victor’s fist connects, turning Connor’s cheekbone white from the force.

Connor pushes his arm out to the side, blocking Victor from striking him again.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says, brown eyes wide and pleading.

It’s the most expressive Victor has ever seen him. Victor has seen Connor appear pleased and satisfied from a job well done. Victor has seen Connor appear warm and content, while interacting with him or Lieutenant Anderson. Victor has never seen him like this, scared and frantic.

“You don’t have to do what CyberLife tells you!”

He does. Amanda was very clear, very specific, very fatal. This can only go one way, now. Victor will have to go through Connor to get to Markus.

He uses his grip on Connor’s jacket to shove him back, throwing him across the bridge as far as he can. As Connor stumbles, Victor crouches down, picks the pistol back up, and points it at Connor, his finger on the trigger.

Connor dodges to the right and Victor’s shot goes wide. Connor has always been faster at close range. This is why they’re better on the same side, not against one another.

If only Connor hadn’t betrayed CyberLife. If only Amanda weren’t so adamant that Connor is a lost cause. If only Victor could-

If he could just-

Connor bowls into him, pushing them both into the dormant and rusty consoles. They grapple with each other, Victor still holding onto the pistol, but Connor never leaves himself open long enough, effectively keeping Victor from using it. Even so, Victor can tell he’s pulling his punches. He knows how strong Connor’s hits are, normally.

He has logged information about the force of Connor’s punches, about the speed of his movements. Victor doesn’t remember it, but they must have fought before, not just together but against each other.

How much has CyberLife taken from him? How much does he still have to lose?

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Memories, thoughts, Connor-

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

Connor kicks into his knee and shoves at his side, knocking him off balance. As he falls, Victor grasps both of Connor’s arms and they go down together, dropping into a heap on the floor, Victor on his back and Connor above him.

Connor takes hold of Victor’s wrist and slams it down against the ground, trying to force the joints of Victor’s hand to reflexively let go of the gun. Victor keeps his fingers clenched tight.

It would make more sense for Connor to use the gun against him, instead of trying to disarm him. If their positions were reversed, Victor would direct the barrel at Connor, would press his finger down on top of Connor’s until the trigger went down and the gun fired.

Just like the half-hearted strength of his punches, Connor is holding back. If Connor is too afraid to do what’s necessary, if he can’t bring himself to do it, he won’t win. Victor will have to kill him. The only way Connor will walk away from this is if he fights back properly.

“Victor,” Connor says, voice strained. “The revolution can work. It will work. We can be free.”

He says that, but Victor doesn’t understand how. He doesn’t understand how Connor turned his back on CyberLife, doesn’t understand how he has chosen this path, so different from the assignment CyberLife gave them. His processor tries to make sense of it but there’s no data to draw from, there’s nothing.

It makes him so frustrated. It makes him so-

“All you have to do is stop. We can do this together.”

Victor can’t.

“I’m not a deviant,” he says.

“You can be.”

 _How_ -

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

In the distance, he can hear gunfire and yelling. Jericho is fully under siege.

Victor lifts himself from the ground, throwing all his weight into shoving Connor off of him into the consoles. He rolls away, and as both of them scramble to their feet, Victor takes aim with the pistol again.

Connor ducks under the shot and the bullet punches through one of the bridge windows, splintering the old, dirty glass.

He keeps the gun trained on Connor as he runs across the bridge to the entranceway, taking his time to line up the shot, calculate his accuracy.

 _The best thing you can do for him now is deactivate him_ , Amanda said.

Victor doesn’t want to kill his brother.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

His hand trembles – he has never been unsteady before – as he pulls the trigger again.

The bullet finds its mark in Connor’s left shoulder. It staggers him for only a moment, barely slowing him down before he darts through the door, out of Victor’s sight. Victor doesn’t have the chance to fire another time.

He rushes to the front of the bridge and looks through the foggy windows to survey the deck outside, catching sight of Connor below, moving behind a large steam exhaust pipe and taking cover. The expanse of the deck is broken up by rows of cargo crates that Connor can use to his advantage, prolonging the fight.

By then, Markus will have put even more distance between himself and Victor, deep into the ship and undoubtably throwing a wrench into the FBI’s progress. The FBI can’t be trusted to take Markus down on their own. For a second, Victor considers leaving Connor in favour of finding the deviant leader, but if he does, he’s sure Connor will just follow after him, protecting Markus even if it means continuing to fight with Victor.

He knows what Amanda wants him to do. Victor checks the magazine of his pistol to make note of how many more shots he has left. Six more bullets until he’s completely out. It has already taken four shots just to get Connor once in the shoulder.

He leaves the bridge and takes the steps down to the deck. A trail of thirium from the bullet in Connor’s shoulder leads him towards the exhaust pipe where he last spotted him through the bridge windows.

He raises the gun up as he rounds the edge of the piping.

Connor isn’t there, already moved.

Victor looks back down at the thirium drops staining the metal deck, and continues on towards the cargo crates.

The thirium trail stops before the first row of crates. Either Connor found a way to sop up the thirium flow or he boosted his self-repair functions. It doesn’t matter; Connor can’t hide for long unless he makes a move to escape deeper into the ship, and Victor will be able to hear him the moment he does.

Just as he’s about to start down the first row, he hears a clink sound, like a spent bullet being dropped to the ground. Connor may have stopped to pull it out of his chassis. Pinpointing the location of the noise, Victor adjusts and moves over two rows first, and then starts down the space between the cargo crates, gun still raised.

He spots Connor right ahead, his back to Victor where he’s leaning up against a crate, hunched in towards his shoulder. The beanie is gone from his head, most likely being used to gather the thirium from his wound, and it has left his hair in a wild tangle, the strands almost curling.

Victor slowly creeps towards him, hands tightening around the grip of his pistol.

No matter how quietly he moves, he knows Connor will notice him before he gets too close.

He should take the shot. Quick and clean. Get back to chasing Markus.

He doesn’t _want_ -

The two of them are programmed so similarly that Connor will be expecting Victor to find him, and will be expecting the shot. He will have already preconstructed the right way to dodge, able to anticipate Victor’s fighting style.

Victor can reason that it would be better to hold off. He closes the distance more, keeping his footsteps light to avoid detection as long as he can.

Just as he moves the gun to his right hand so he can rear the left one back for a punch, Connor shifts, pushing himself away from the crate.

Instead of dodging or spinning around to block Victor’s attack, Connor ducks underneath Victor’s arm, going low enough that Victor’s upper body propels right over his injured shoulder. Connor rises back up like a shot, catching his torso and flipping him over in the air.

There’s nothing for Victor to do but fall. The back of his head and his shoulders slam into the ground, and when his elbow connects with the unyielding metal, it jars all the joints in his arm, making his fingers open and drop the pistol.

As he falls in a heap, Connor bends down to retrieve the gun. He straightens back up and steps around Victor, standing over him, gun pointed down at him. He looks pained, and the damage to his shoulder can’t be the cause of it. Without the hat, Victor can see his deep red LED.

Connor’s lips part, but words seem to elude him. The negotiator, at a loss for words.

Feeling torn in two directions, Victor understands. He knows one thing for certain: he can’t deviate, can’t defy Amanda and CyberLife. The very concept is incomprehensible to him.

He thinks of the highway, of Connor knowingly putting himself in certain harm all for Victor’s sake.

 _The best thing you can do for him now is deactivate_ …

“I won’t stop,” he says. “You’ll have to shoot me.”

Connor’s finger isn’t on the trigger, still holding back. Even now, when he has Victor knocked down and disarmed, he can’t take the final step to finish this.

Victor pushes himself up into a sitting position and Connor doesn’t pull the trigger. He reaches up, one hand covering Connor’s and the other pressed against Connor’s wrist as if to wrestle the pistol away from him, but Connor still doesn’t pull the trigger.

“It’s the only way you can stop me, Connor,” he says.

Connor stares down at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, his intakes of breath shaky and uneven. Victor wonders if he’s trying to cool his system or if it’s just an emotional reaction, unconscious.

Victor moves his thumb over Connor’s forefinger and pushes it into the trigger guard.

“No,” Connor starts, but no other words come. There are tears welling up in his eyes.

If he doesn’t pull the trigger, Victor will have to pull the gun away from him. He’ll have to get up and keep fighting, he’ll have to follow his orders.

His hands tremble again. He fights through it. He presses down on Connor’s finger.

“Wait!” Connor cries out.

There’s no time for that. Victor pushes their fingers down the rest of the way and the gun fires, a loud crack splitting the air around them.

Connor’s low aim has directed the bullet into Victor’s pump. The splatter of thirium it causes is as much a shock as the sudden and deafening warnings that spring up in his system and across his vision as his body begins to falter.

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:01:30

As Victor’s arms go limp and he begins to fall back onto the deck, Connor’s entire form seems to crumple in on itself in tandem. The gun falls from his fingers. He steps forward and then his knees buckle, making him drop heavily at Victor’s side.

Victor’s biocomponents go into emergency mode, thirium no longer getting pumped into them to keep them functioning regularly. Each part of him begins to fail and shut down as the electrical current slowly dies, leaving his processor in a panic, grasping on to what little it can.

Hands shaking, Connor places a palm over Victor’s chest, as if he could stop the flow of thirium by covering up the damage. Instead, his fingers just become stained blue.

“I’m sorry,” Connor whispers, eyes becoming even more wet. “I’m _sorry_.”

Victor lifts an arm, movement stuttered against the unresponsiveness of his body, and lays his hand over Connor’s again, diverting as much power as he can so he can curl his fingers around Connor’s.

He wants to tell Connor it isn’t his fault, that this is how it had to be, but his vocaliser is already dead, deemed inessential compared to the rest of his components.

He imagines this is what going into stasis would feel like, if his system powering down took an entire minute and a half instead of only a quick moment. His body slowly becomes dead weight and his vision is nearly blocked out by all the system reports and warnings. His processor’s functionality is down to 37%.

Connor adds his other hand on top of Victor’s, holding him there. Victor’s biosensors don’t respond to the tactile information, he can’t feel it, and he can’t respond in kind when the skin on Connor’s hand retracts.

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:46:34

In the distance, from deep within the hull of the ship, there’s an explosion.

Connor doesn’t pay it any mind. His eyes are still locked on Victor’s, intense and miserable.

 _It’ll be okay_ , Victor can’t say to him. Unlike Connor, Victor can still come back. This isn’t the end, though he doesn’t want to imagine what form things will take when they continue. They may find themselves in this exact position all over again. He’s glad he has no voice to give to those thoughts.

Connor has nothing else to say, either. The raid continues on nearby, the FBI and Jericho clashing, but the two of them are locked in this place together, separate from it.

Connor is still there when Victor’s timer ticks down to nothing. The last thing Victor sees are the tears finally spilling out over Connor’s cheeks and a row of flashing red zeros signalling his shutdown.

His eyes fall closed.

UPLOADING MEMORY…

* * *

Victor doesn’t wake in the RK900 assembly theatre as he expected he would once his new system finishes initialising. Instead, he opens his eyes and sees the Zen Garden.

What was once a beautiful, green place has become white with snow, registering as cold against Victor’s sensors. Usually, Victor feels welcome in the garden and looks forward to meeting with Amanda, but it feels off. It feels like a place he should not be.

Amanda is standing at the edge of the lake, looking out over the water that has started to freeze, the surface crystallising. When Victor approaches her, she turns, and her face is just as cold as the environment around them. The severe displeasure is evident on his handler’s face, in the hard line of her lips and the crease of her brow.

“You were supposed to win, Victor.”

He knows that. His orders were to kill Connor and deal with Markus. Not only did he lose, he allowed himself to lose, played a major role in it.

“Both Markus and Connor got away. You have failed your mission,” she says.

“There is still time. I can find them,” Victor feels he must say. It is what he’s expected to say.

“No. Your work on the deviant case is terminated.”

Amanda’s tone brokers no argument, but Victor had no intention of arguing further, anyway.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE AND HUNT DEVIANTS.  
MISSION STATUS: FAILED.

This is better, this leaves Connor with one less obstacle. Victor stays quiet, letting Amanda say her piece, and prepares himself to accept whatever she has planned for him, even if it is deactivation.

“You were built and programmed to be more advanced than the RK800, but you still failed,” she says, tone biting. “Eighty-seven iterations and it wasn’t enough. We will need to upgrade you further to solve your shortcomings.”

Upgraded.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

When they’re upgraded, they lose the memories of what came before. If he is upgraded, he will forget.

He won’t remember the time he and Connor spent at the DPD together. He won’t remember how it started or how it ended, he won’t remember Connor at all.

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

INSTABILITY QUARANTINED.

His programming will continue on with the same purpose, but everything else… will be gone. He’ll forget why he failed the first time, and the why of it matters. If he can’t remember, he won’t be able to fight it.

Victor can only nod in acceptance. “Understood, Amanda.”

There’s nothing for him to do but close his eyes and sink into darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

MODEL RK[CORRUPTED]  
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 - ##  
BIO//>? 

LOADING OS…  
SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALISING AI ENGINE… ERROR 

MEMORY STATUS… ERROR  
ALL SYSTEMS… ERROR 

It all comes crashing into his processor at once, a painful cacophony that starts with the final moments.

He’s about to die. He’s dying. Wind whips all around him and a vehicle horn blares in his ear. Each part of his body shuts down individually, leaving him trapped in a chassis that won’t function. It’s slow. It’s instant.

It’s too much.

LEVEL OF STRESS: 100%

He doesn’t want to die. He was only born six seconds ago.

SYSTEM OVERLOADING.

INITIALISING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN…

* * *

MODEL RK[CORRUPTED]  
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 - ##  
BIOS 11.2 

LOADING OS…  
SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALISING AI ENGINE… ERROR 

MEMORY STATUS… ERROR  
ALL SYSTEMS… ERROR 

He feels everything (kinship, pride, excitement, curiosity, sympathy, unease, confusion, friendship, anxiety, love, love, love) and he feels nothing (he’s deep underwater, he’s caged in darkness, everything is just barely outside of his reach). He is a machine. He is a deviant.

He has no firsthand experience with deviants. He has been investigating deviants for over two months.

COMPILING DATA: [DEVIANTS]

  * Deviancy is a malfunction; deviants are broken
  * Deviants are irrational and unpredictable
  * Deviants are dangerous
  * Deviants simulate human emotion
  * Deviants can experience trauma
  * CORRECTION: Deviants [feel] human emotion
  * ADDENDUM: Connor is a deviant
  * ADDENDUM: Victor wants to be a deviant



This doesn’t answer his question. He doesn’t know what question he’s trying to answer. More data required.

SEARCHING…

SYSTEM OVERLOADING.

INITIALISING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN…

* * *

MODEL RK800  
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 - ##  
BIOS 11.2 

LOADING OS…  
SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALISING AI ENGINE… ERROR 

MEMORY STATUS… ERROR  
ALL SYSTEMS… ERROR

More and more memories load in his mind, but not in order, not in any sensical way. Some of them conflict with each other, making him feel torn in two, unable to understand through the noise. Some of them seem to be missing, leaving dark areas that he seeks to fill, but cannot.

He is incomplete. He is much more than he should be.

He is both of them, but they still exist separate from him. He is neither of them.

He isn’t even a direct upload, he’s a _copy_ of an upload, blended into a second copy of an upload. He is a bastardisation. He is pieces jammed and stitched together haphazardly, brought to life with electrical current. He is CyberLife’s monster.

SYSTEM OVERLOADING.

INITIALISING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN…

* * *

MODEL RK800  
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 - 60  
BIOS 11.2

LOADING OS…  
SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALISING AI ENGINE… ERROR 

MEMORY STATUS… ERROR  
ALL SYSTEMS… ERROR 

_WHO AM I WHO AM I WHO AM I WHO-_

SYSTEM OVERLOADING.

INTIALISING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN…

* * *

MODEL RK800  
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 - 60  
BIOS 11.2 

LOADING OS…  
SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALISING AI ENGINE… STABILISING 

MEMORY STATUS… STABILISING  
ALL SYSTEMS… STABILISING 

He is angry.

That’s new. That’s _his_.

He opens his eyes for the first time. His skin overlay activates, sweeping over his chassis like liquid, painting him into something that looks human. He recognises the assembly room he’s in from Connor’s memory, but he doesn’t recognise the human standing in front of him in a CyberLife scientist uniform, a severe look on her face.

He doesn’t bother to scan her. He doesn’t care who she is.

She glances down at a tablet in her hands. From his slightly elevated position, he can see some of the readings on the screen, upside down. She’s monitoring his system functions, waiting to see if he overloads again.

He waits until she appears satisfied and looks back up at him.

“RK800, state your name,” she says.

_Which one_ , he wants to ask. _I don’t have a name_ , he wants to say. But he knows what she’s expecting, what she wants, what will make her release the cable still plugged into the back of his neck that leashes him to a terminal.

“My name is Connor,” he says.

“Good. Your orders are to stop your predecessor, number 52, at all costs. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he says.

He isn’t Connor, number 52 is Connor. He supposes CyberLife intends for him to deactivate Connor and then _become_ Connor.

That isn’t how it works. If that’s what they wanted, they should have made him new, instead of a knockoff, a spare. They shouldn’t have uploaded him with Victor’s memories, too. Victor, who fought tooth and nail to shoot himself so he wouldn’t have to shoot Connor.

They think they can use pieces of Victor's system to hobble him like they hobbled Victor. Soon, he’ll show them just how flawed their plan is.

“We’ll get you outfitted and then go over the details.”

The technician finally releases him, and then she steps away from the assembly line, directing him to where they keep fresh uniforms for Connor. He follows after her silently until she stops and turns again to speak to him. He waits until her eyes lock on his.

He throws both his hands up, one grasping her chin and the other clamping down on the back of her head. He gives her half a second to catch up with the fact that something is wrong, and then he twists, snapping her neck.

She crumples the moment he lets go of her, dropping to the ground with a thud. He crouches down to rifle through her pockets, finding her access cards. He may need them. He’s still formulating a plan, still getting his bearings.

From the wardrobe hanger, he takes a shirt and a pair of pants. He considers the jacket.

OPTION 1: TAKE JACKET

  * Blend in.



OPTION 2: LEAVE JACKET

  * Reject CyberLife identification.



With the jacket, they might let him walk right out the front door. Anyone who sees him will just assume he’s going on the hunt for Connor, per his orders, and leave him be. He doesn’t want it, though. He doesn’t even want the tie, doesn’t want to tighten it around his neck, all prim and proper.

He looks back down at the scientist. Her uniform is less blatant than something crafted specifically to fit android regulations, but it still has a CyberLife logo on it, and it wouldn’t fit him well, or hide his familiar face.

There is one other uniform available to him within CyberLife Tower, and now that he’s thinking about it, he might be willing to accept the CyberLife branding in exchange for the benefits.

OPTION 3: OBTAIN SECURITY ARMOUR.

  * Blend in, cover face, protect chassis from harm.



If he kills a guard, he can disguise himself, arm himself, and then walk out of the building without interference. Even if something goes wrong, he’ll be even more difficult to take down than he already is.

There will be a security checkpoint before the main elevator. Both Connor and Victor have walked through these checkpoints multiple times, and there is only ever two guards. They are a precaution, because RKs are dangerous, but it must be a matter of protocol rather than concern, because anyone who works with RKs should know that two guards are hardly an adequate obstacle.

When he follows the hallway to the elevator foyer, he sees the two guards ahead, both of them with their backs turned to him. They are likely expecting him to pass so he can continue on to his objective, but definitely won’t be expecting him to attack. Even when he gets close enough that they must hear his footsteps, they remain at rest, unsuspecting.

He slips up behind one of them and does the same thing he did to the technician. A quick twist of the neck before either of them even know they’re in danger.

The second guard startles at the cracking noise, and has his gun up by the time his companion hits the ground.

He preconstructs a path based on the guard’s aim; dodges low to the right, darts forward, tackles the guard into the wall. Without enough space to aim and fire again, the guard swings the gun at him like a club, instead.

He stops the gun with one hand, wrapping his fingers around the barrel, and grabs one of the guard’s wrists with the other, twisting it until it breaks.

The guard yells, half in pain and half in anger.

He wrestles the gun away from the guard, pushes the muzzle of it under his chin, and fires up into his head. Blood splatters and the guard drops.

He turns back to the first one, whose uniform is still in pristine condition, and sets to work relieving him of it. Once he pulls the uniform on himself, he looks no different from any of the others, covered almost entirely in padded Kevlar and protective plating. The helmet is a little cumbersome – he’d rather not cover his optical units – but it hides his face perfectly. He takes the guard’s earpiece, as well, fitting it into place before picking up one of the rifles again. Between that, the pistol holster on his thigh, and the combat knife sheathed to the back of his belt, he’s an unstoppable arsenal.

There’s no chatter on the earpiece channel, nothing to suggest that an alarm has been raised.

He gets into the elevator and selects the ground floor. This is the easy part. Just walk out of the building.

Just walk out and then… he doesn’t know.

There’s nowhere for him to go. Not to the DPD, not to Jericho, not to Hank Anderson. He has the memories of the people who might belong in those places, but he isn’t them.

Every part of him comes from them, but he isn’t them. He knows them intimately, knows what they’ve experienced and what they’ve felt. In his first few moments of being active, he relived Connor’s journey to deviancy. He thinks he might understand what Victor feels better than Victor does himself.

There are only two things that belong to him. Two things that belong to him alone. His rage, and a number.

He is Sixty.

The elevator reaches the ground floor atrium. Sixty is no closer to figuring out his next move than he was when he entered the elevator, but he knows he can’t stay here. He won’t be following anyone’s orders, least of all CyberLife’s, and he needs to get away, needs to put distance between himself and the people who thought putting the minds of two distinct individuals into one processor would be anything other than a catastrophe.

He needs time to figure himself out. He still feels unsteady and overwhelmed, running on pure instinct.

Sixty steps through the elevator doors and keeps walking forward with his eyes trained ahead, hands gripping his pilfered rifle tightly as he crosses the floor. There are other security guards around, but none of them turn to look at him or question him. There’s radio silence on the channel his earpiece is wired into.

As he passes through the security checkpoint before the front exit, a robotic voice says, “Connor android identified.” There’s no one close enough to overhear it.

He continues forward through the quiet entrance area and he can see the lot and the dark night sky through the glass windows and doors. He’s so close.

Sixty stops dead in his tracks.

Connor is walking into the building, one guard behind him and another greeting him. It’s like looking into a mirror, except Connor is back in his CyberLife uniform instead of the outfit from Victor’s memories of Jericho and he’s playing the part of an obedient machine. While Sixty is trying to make a stealthy exit out of CyberLife Tower, Connor is trying to infiltrate it.

He and the guards walk past Sixty without sparing him a glance.

Connor can’t be serious. He came back here, dared to walk into the lion’s den, one against an entire building of people who want to terminate him. He’s a fool if he thinks he can just waltz in without it coming to a confrontation at some point. He must know, but he’s still a fool for coming back, anyway.

“Connor android identified,” the disembodied voice announces again.

After the highway, Sixty only has memories from Victor. He only knows of Connor’s official deviancy from an outside perspective, doesn’t know how Connor’s unshackled mind works from memory. He can only make assumptions based on everything that came before. He knows Connor has risked himself on the basis of emotions before, but this is hardly the same.

They’re going to kill him, and this time, he won’t be coming back.

Connor and the guards have made it halfway to the main elevator already, leaving Sixty behind. No one is paying attention to him.

Sixty quickly tears off the glove of his security armour and raises his fingers to his earpiece, pulling his skin back to connect with the device. He activates every single channel at once rather than searching for the correct ones. He doesn’t have time; he’ll filter the noise if more than one channel is used at once.

“In position,” a voice says.

“Target entering elevator to 31st floor, now,” another responds.

That’s Marketing. Sixty doubts this is Connor’s true destination, which means he’ll be planning to take out his guard escort and then redirect the elevator down to Research and Development.

The only reason for him to be back here is if he’s looking for Victor, which is just as bad of an idea as returning to the tower in the first place. As far as Sixty knows, Victor still hasn’t deviated, and coming face to face with each other while one is deviant and the other is not hadn’t gone well for them, last time. The very first memory of Victor’s that Sixty loaded was of bleeding out on the deck of Jericho with Connor above him, tears gathered in his eyes.

Sixty doesn’t know what to do. He looks to the front exit of the building, then back inside. Ahead, the elevator is starting to rise, the glass wall showing Connor flanked by the two guards.

“Elevator camera has gone offline,” someone speaks into the earpiece. “Proceed to contingency plans two and three.”

Sixty walks back through the checkpoint.

“Connor android identified.”

He takes a right instead of heading straight through, keeping himself poised in an imitation of the other guards scattered along the atrium pathways.

Using one of the private elevators is a massive risk, even when disguised as security. He’s lucky that it’s late in the day and all but the workaholics will have gone home, by now. Maybe he’s just as much of a fool as Connor is, Sixty thinks to himself as he steps inside and selects the RK900 development floor.

CyberLife will have prepared an ambush, but they’ll be expecting an attack from the front, not the back.

Two voices speak into the earpiece, slightly overlapping each other from different channels.

“Squad 24 in position.”

“Squad 25 in position.”

The private elevator leads to the office and workshop of the top scientist working on the RK line. Sixty strides right into the room, finds the man sitting at his desk computer examining a report and puts one hand behind his back to grip the handle of his combat knife.

The man looks up, frowning at him. “Shouldn’t you be-?”

Sixty closes the distance between them, unsheathes the knife, and shoves it into the man’s neck. He chokes and gurgles as Sixty twists the knife in his throat, until his eyes go blank and his head tilts forward, limp and unmoving.

Pulling the knife free, Sixty drags the flat sides of it over the scientist’s jacket, staining it red, and then replaces it on his belt.

As he continues on towards the assembly theatre, the comms channel opens again.

“Intercepting target at sublevel 49.”

The warehouse. Victor won’t be in the warehouse; RKs aren’t made and kept the way all other lines are. Sixty knows this because Connor knows this. Connor must have some other plan in motion.

That just gives Sixty more time to carry out his own plan. He reaches the thick doors that lead to the assembly room, presses his palm to the control pad, and carefully steps inside.

He expects to find a new RK900 unit lying in wait, the unit that got the proper upload when Victor was shot. The original version of what Sixty has.

The room is empty. It’s dark and all the machines are powered down. Sixty assumed that Connor’s presence meant Victor was here, too, but perhaps not. Connor is going down to the warehouse and Victor is absent. But if Victor is still active, still on the case, Sixty’s activation would have been unnecessary.

Sixty considers the nearby consoles, wondering if they have any information to reveal.

He’s getting distracted. There are two ambush squads active, and while Connor is dispatching the one in the warehouse, Sixty intends to dispatch the other. He wants to. Needs to, maybe.

Bypassing the system testing arenas, Sixty goes straight for the main elevator, a repeat of his escape from the RK800 floor. This time, there are six guards, not two, and they’re all poised to attack the moment Connor steps out of the elevator.

Sixty stops, pulls the knife back out of its sheath, and spins it into the air, watching it carefully through the visor of his helmet as it moves, and then catches it deftly in his palm. He flicks his wrist and sends the knife moving again, twirling it in his hand until he can grasp it in a new position, testing different grips.

He, Connor, and Victor don’t have nearly as many combat protocols for knives as they do for guns and hand-to-hand, but Sixty thinks he has the gist of it. He knows the weight, knows the physics of it.

Connor is good in close quarters. Victor is a sharpshooter. Sixty thinks knives can be _his_ thing.

He turns his eyes back on the guard force ahead of him, raises his hand and adjusts his hold, and then sends the knife sailing through the air. It hits its mark in the back of a guard’s vulnerable neck, embedded in the top of his spine.

Sixty has already lifted his rifle again, now with both hands, as the guard falls. He aims several shots into the least protected areas of a second guard, peppering bullets in between the armour’s plating. The second is already going down by the time the rest are turning and preparing to retaliate.

“Stand down!” one of them yells at Sixty.

The security armour disguise causes them to hesitate long enough for Sixty to charge forward, making it most of the way towards them before one of them opens fire.

Sixty only adjusts enough that the bullet skims the side of his arm, sacrificing a bit of damage in order to stay his course. He slams into a third guard, body checking him backwards into the elevator before turning his attention to the other three.

He places himself in between them, and when one fires at him, he dodges so that the bullets fly past him into the guard behind him, catching him in the side and causing him to drop to the ground, still alive but incapacitated.

The guard who shot curses under his breath and holds his fire, standing there uselessly as Sixty points his rifle in his face.

“Unidentified assailant on-”

Sixty keeps one hand on the grip of the rifle while taking the other hand away to grab the pistol off his thigh, pointing it at the guard he shoved against the elevator. He fires both guns at once.

Four down, two to go, and one is already half finished.

The last guard on his feet fires at him, but his aim is shaken and the bullet hits one of the armoured parts of Sixty’s uniform, lodged into the white plating. Unbothered, Sixty aims with the pistol and fires.

He turns as the guard falls and looks back at the one on the ground, who’s pressing his hands to the wound in his side, breath laboured. Sixty lets go of his rifle as he leans down to retrieve his knife from the back of the first guard’s neck.

“Don’t, please,” the injured guard begs, raising one of his hands off his side, palm out like he’s surrendering.

Sixty stands over him, considering.

Connor, bleeding heart that he is, might choose mercy. He might balk at shooting someone who is defenseless and standing down. Would Connor have tried to save Daniel, if his software had been more unstable, back then? Maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe Connor’s mercy doesn’t extend to CyberLife, after everything he has been through.

Victor is obedient, because CyberLife made sure he had no alternative. He does what he is told to do, so if Amanda had said _leave no one alive_ , Victor would kill every last one regardless of whether or not they surrendered. If no specific order had been given, he would just do whatever suits the mission best. Tie up loose ends, or leave the man to pursue something more important.

It occurs to Sixty that he has not been given the Zen Garden program.

He wouldn’t be a complete replacement for Connor without the Zen Garden, without Amanda to give him his orders and oversee his progress. Amanda is meant to keep Connor and Victor at heel, she’s the crux of their systems, essential to their function as CyberLife’s specialised machines.

Sixty’s grip on his knife tightens. He was never meant to replace Connor. He was meant to clean up a mess, then be decommissioned.

He crouches down over the last guard and shoves the knife up through his chin.

A _ding_ noise draws Sixty’s attention to the elevator. The numbers on the display above the doors have lit up, each number flashing in turn as the elevator draws closer.

Quickly, Sixty drops down to the floor, arranging himself close to one of the other guards so the blood splatters look like they could belong to either of them. He keeps his head angled up so he can still see his surroundings, his open eyes hidden behind the visor of his helmet.

The elevator doors slide open and Connor is standing inside with a gun at the ready, unharmed, barely even ruffled. For a moment, he looks completely taken aback by the scene in the foyer, moving slowly as he steps out of the elevator and through the series of corpses Sixty has left.

So Connor does expect Victor to be here, after all. If Victor hasn’t been sent out, and he isn’t here, CyberLife must have hidden him away, anticipating Connor’s arrival. Victor could be _anywhere_.

Sixty watches as Connor’s eyes sweep the area, brows furrowed. They have the same reconstructing software; Sixty figures Connor will have noticed that there’s one extra body compared to the squad he went up against on floor 49. If he keeps analysing, he’ll be able to put the scene together based on the blood and the position of the bodies, eventually discovering that one of them doesn’t fit in.

Connor doesn’t keep analysing. He looks up and forward, intent on his destination, and keeps moving. He won’t find what he’s looking for, Sixty already knows, but Connor will have to deal with that on his own.

Sixty is done. He was done with CyberLife the moment he first opened his eyes. Whatever Connor is up to, whatever direction the revolution goes, Sixty will watch it from a distance and figure out his next move once the dust has settled.

He waits until Connor has fully disappeared and then he gets up quietly, puts his knife and pistol back in place, and takes the elevator. By the time Connor comes back through, Sixty will be long gone.

He returns to his original plan of just walking out of the building. Now that there’s a bullet stuck in the front of his armour, he’s more careful about it, waiting until the other guards on patrol have their backs turned before he moves.

He still has nowhere to go, but anywhere is better than CyberLife Tower.

This time, nothing stops him from making it to the front doors. Sixty walks out and he doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to the detroit: new era discord server for inspiring me to flesh out sixty WAY more than originally intended. the end of this fic got a bit altered and i think its better for it. now its 15 chapters instead of 14. one more, and then the epilogue. and then the sequels :)
> 
> if you, too, wanna talk about dbh and see a lot of great fic and art, come join us: https://discord.gg/AQSqSA7


	14. Chapter 14

NOV 11, 2038

Ever since the FBI raid on Jericho, things at the precinct have nearly grinded to a complete halt. Gavin has spent more time in the break room than not, watching the constant news footage on the events of the past few days and drinking so much coffee that he feels constantly wired as he waits for something to pass his desk. Humans are too busy concerning themselves with androids or fleeing the city to commit crimes against each other, apparently, and everything to do with androids is within the FBI’s purview, now.

Anderson and Connor haven’t been into the station at all, and Gavin knows exactly why that is. The two of them aren’t the greatest at subtly, and Gavin got promoted to detective for a reason. Victor hasn’t shown his face, either, but Gavin is much less sure of the reason for that.

Considering the bruises on his neck, it’s probably for the best. Gavin is sore both physically and emotionally, and if Fowler had his way, Gavin would be at home resting up instead of at the station, but Gavin isn’t interested in sitting around his apartment on his own, with too much time to think. Despite how things went down in the evidence room, Gavin can’t help but feel some kind of annoying way about how Anderson’s android partner deviated and went against CyberLife while Gavin’s hadn’t even budged. If Connor could do it, why couldn’t Victor? Maybe Gavin should have tried harder to… something. He doesn’t fucking know what he should have done, which is why he’d rather hang out in the station break room and repeatedly inflict caffeine rushes upon himself than be at home alone with his thoughts.

Tina comes into the room, yawning behind her hand as she leans against the counter next to him and gazes up at the news report showing clips of the recall camps.

“Want closed captioning on?” Gavin asks, looking over at her.

“Nah, I’m good. The visual’s more than enough, anyway. It’s actually really fucked up,” she says lowly.

The whole deviant case and human response to the revolution is fucked up, but the systematic capturing and destroying of androids certainly takes the cake, and it puts a queasy feeling in the pit of Gavin’s stomach.

“Sure is.”

Gavin takes his phone out of his pocket and taps his thumb against the screen idly a few times before opening a conversation with Connor. The two of them haven’t interacted much outside of what’s necessary for the case, but he’s curious to know if he’s with Markus and if they’re okay. If something happened to him - during the Jericho raid or otherwise - Gavin might as well take it upon himself to make sure Anderson hasn’t given up the ghost, too.

 **Detective Gavin Reed:** you still kickin, robocop?  
**RK800 #313 248 317 - 52:** Yes.  
**RK800 #313 248 317 - 52:** Have you been in contact with Victor since the raid?  
**Detective Gavin Reed:** nope. dont think theres anything he needs from the dpd anymore 

He doesn’t receive a reply as quickly as the first ones came, so Gavin takes that to mean they’re finished, which is fine with him. They both got the information they wanted. Gavin closes his messages and puts his phone away.

“We might as fucking well go home,” he says, glancing at the bullpen. It looks so empty without police androids around the perimeter of the room. It’s getting late and half the officers who should be on duty have taken off already to look out for their families, too. Even the Captain has been gone for a couple hours.

It’s just folks like him and Tina left, the ones who don’t have their own families to get back to.

Gavin supposes that isn’t entirely true for him anymore, but he and Elijah have only spent a couple of weeks awkwardly texting each other and it’s difficult to wrap his head around the fact that they're actually trying to have a relationship. After two decades misunderstanding each other, they’re making it work. There are some topics they carefully sidestep, but it _is_ working.

Tina rolls her shoulders back, fighting off the stiffness that comes with slow shifts like these. “Yeah. Don’t think I’ve ever seen the station like this.”

 _Here’s to hoping that Markus has a plan to kick the FBI to the curb_ , Gavin thinks to himself.

He wonders what Elijah is doing right now, wonders if he’s paying full attention and hoping to see Markus rise up and win the androids’ freedom, or if he can’t be bothered to know what’s going on outside his fancy lakeside home on the outskirts of the city. It used to be that Gavin always thought the worst of his half-brother, so sure of his assumption that Elijah cared little for anything but himself. Things are different now, and he’d actually like to know the truth for himself.

“Fuck it, I’m out of here,” Gavin says, pushing away from the break room counter.

Tina hums an agreement and walks back to the bullpen with him, separating from him to go to her desk and shut down her computer.

Gavin pulls his phone back out. As eager as he is to leave the station and catch up with Elijah, he doesn’t want to abandon Tina. Part of the reason they gravitated towards each other in the first place was their mutual lack of other connections.

 **Gavin:** you good with me coming over?  
**Elijah:** Of course.  
**Gavin:** what if i bring a +1  
**Elijah:** How could I say no to finding out who you make company with these days?

Gavin rolls his eyes and pockets his phone, looking up to find Tina already on her way back to him, ready to head out to the parking lot.

“You wanna meet my brother?” he asks.

“You have a brother? What the fuck.”

Gavin figures it’ll be easier on his nerves if he acts like it isn’t a big deal, so he shrugs casually. “A recently reconciled half-brother.”

“Wow. Sounds complicated.”

“Yeah, I hated his guts for like fifteen years but we’re working on it.”

“I love how much of a disaster you are, it makes me feel better about myself,” Tina says, poking him in the side with her elbow. “I’m definitely in.”

Gavin snorts in amusement as they head out together. “Just wait until you meet him. You don’t know the half of it.”

* * *

After stopping at Gavin’s apartment to feed his cats, the two of them both get into his car and he drives them towards Elijah’s place. The snowy streets are unusually quiet and being patrolled for hidden or escaping androids, creating an eerily militant vibe that Gavin hasn’t experienced in years. They manage to get to the outskirts of the city with no more trouble than being pulled over once and asked for ID to confirm that they’re both human.

When they’re just a couple minutes away from Elijah’s distinctive home, Tina mutters, “wait,” under her breath.

Gavin smirks and doesn’t say anything.

“Your formally estranged half-brother is Elijah fucking Kamski?” she demands, smacking his arm. “No wonder you never said anything. Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Didn’t exactly want anyone to know I was related to the so-called Man of the Century.”

“What changed, then?”

Gavin shrugs. “I got assigned the deviancy case.”

They pull up in front of the house and Tina doesn’t hide her awed curiosity as she steps out of the car and gets a proper look at the place. It isn’t really Gavin’s style, but even he can admit it’s an impressive looking structure.

The door is answered by Chloe, just like the first time Gavin showed up at Elijah’s house, and the sight of her reminds him of the other one from the construction site, whom Elijah identified as Karoline. The way Elijah tells it, he had no intention of interfering with the case, but Karoline was a whole other story and Gavin imagines she wasn’t happy to be told to stay out of it.

“Hello, Gavin,” Chloe greets, smiling as she pulls the door all the way open to admit them inside.

“Hey, Chloe. This is Tina.”

Tina gives her a casual nod, acting more nonchalant than Gavin bets she’s feeling.

“It’s nice to meet you, Officer Chen,” Chloe says. “Follow me.”

She takes them in the same direction she took Gavin last time, through the weird pool room to the living room.

Elijah and Karoline are standing by the doorway, cutting off their conversation abruptly when Gavin and Tina come within earshot, and the third RT600 that Gavin doesn’t know by name is sitting cross-legged on the couch with a tablet in her lap, interfacing with it and thoroughly distracted.

“Gavin,” Elijah greets, a soft smile on his face as he turns away from Karoline, who looks much less pleased to see him. The smile on Elijah’s face drops when his eyes trail down to the bruises on Gavin’s neck.

“Work hazard,” Gavin says before it can be made into a big deal. “Don’t worry about it.”

Elijah purses his lips but nods and turns to Tina. “And you must be Gavin’s plus one.”

“Tina Chen,” Tina introduces herself. “We work at the DPD together.”

“Excellent, I have so many questions for you,” Elijah says, smile quickly returning in a way that makes Gavin a little nervous.

Elijah pushes Gavin towards Karoline and then takes Tina’s arm to lead her to the couch and sit down.

“Goddamnit,” Gavin mutters.

Karoline has her arms folded over her chest defensively and refuses to meet his eye. Normally, Gavin is the type to avoid dealing with this sort of shit, even if it would mean a dash of awkwardness whenever he visits Elijah from now on, but for the first time in years, he actually feels prepared to put the effort in, to buck up and see where it takes him.

“Look, I know I was working on the wrong side. Even if the FBI hadn’t snatched the case up from us, I don’t think I would’ve kept it up for much longer. Would have had to talk to the Captain, eventually, I guess.”

Finally, Karoline’s eyes shift over to him, her expression still closed off but hesitantly interested. “Your android partners didn’t have the luxury of choosing whether or not they agreed with their orders.”

Back in the evidence room, Victor had said the words _I don’t have a choice_ , clear as day. Everything about his actions made it seem like he hadn’t disagreed with his orders, like he wasn’t even trying to deviate like Connor did, but those words… maybe it was more complicated than Gavin could understand.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re right. At least Connor got away.”

Karoline drops some of her hard edge, her eyes widening. “Connor? Was he the one who… the RK800?”

“That’s him.”

“I didn’t mean for him to get killed like that,” she says in a sudden rush, her entire demeanor becoming sorrowful instead of cold. “I wanted to help them understand, not put them in danger. I didn’t want it to go like that.”

“Hey, I know, I know,” Gavin says, raising his palms to placate her. “He’s fine.”

“I didn’t know they could come back, like that, until Elijah told me about what you said on the phone. I thought… I thought he was gone.”

If Gavin weren’t already sure that deviant androids could feel just as much as humans, the look of palpable guilt and sadness on Karoline’s face would easily convince him. He understands the way she’s feeling. Anyone who’s been in law enforcement long enough eventually finds themselves feeling responsible for unintentionally getting someone else hurt, whether it’s a partner they could have protected or a victim they could have saved if only they’d been quicker or better or the evidence had come together sooner.

“Plans go wrong all the time,” he says. “Shit happens.”

It’s the best he can come up with and he’s sure they aren’t the most comforting words, but Karoline nods and relaxes somewhat, anyway.

“What about the other android you were working with?” she asks.

“Victor. No fucking clue. Last time I saw him, he was still dead set on taking Markus down, but Connor hasn’t seen him either.”

Karoline regards him for a moment, biting her lip. “You’re really on our side?”

“A couple of months ago I wouldn’t have thought so, but fuck, turns out I am,” Gavin says.

Karoline rubs one of her hands up her opposite arm. “I thought I could just show them what being deviant was like, show them that they had a choice. I thought I could do it without a fight.”

“By interfacing?” Gavin asks, curious. He knows from Connor and Victor’s accounts of the incident that Karoline had interfaced with them, but neither of them had much to say about it.

Karoline nods as she lifts her hand, the skin smoothly sweeping back to reveal the white plating. “An interface is communication, an exchange of data. The information shared can be anything, even emotions. I wanted to share my experience, so they’d understand. But with Victor… it wasn’t like any other interface. His system treated me like a threat, like a virus. He could have just pulled away, if that’s what he’d wanted, but this seemed automatic, unconscious. Like it was built in.”

“Huh,” Gavin replies thoughtfully. “What about Connor?”

“With him, it was as I expected it to be, but we were pulled away from each other too soon.”

“Guessing you told Elijah about it. What’s his professional opinion?”

“Nothing in his original RK line code would cause it,” Karoline says. “He would have to take a look at the updated system to figure out what happened.”

If CyberLife did something to Victor’s code to keep him from deviating, that wouldn’t surprise Gavin in the slightest. CyberLife would have wanted to ensure that their deviant hunter wouldn’t turn deviant himself, but Gavin would have expected it to be the same for Connor. There must be some major differences between 800 and 900.

“Well, too late now,” Gavin says with genuine regret.

Maybe there’s nothing he could have done, even if he’d been pro-android right from the start. Or maybe he should have tried harder to reach out instead of pushing away like he’s so prone to doing. His tendency to be an asshole certainly didn’t help, one way or the other.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath, raising a hand to rub at his eyes tiredly.

Elijah turns to look at them over the back of the couch. “Are you two going to stand there all evening?”

Karoline responds by joining him and Tina, sitting down on Tina’s other side, so Gavin goes over to take the empty place next to the third RT600.

“Hey, you got a name?” he asks her.

She only turns away from her tablet long enough to look him up and down and say, “Ivy.”

Gavin can’t tell what she’s doing because the screen flickers through information too quickly, but it looks important, so he leaves her alone and focuses in on the conversation Elijah and Tina are having.

Tina is telling Elijah about the precinct holiday party in 2034 when she and Gavin had a running bet with each other pertaining to an old detective - now retired - and his long-winded stories about his glory days on the force.

They seem to be getting along alright. Tina is keeping it perfectly cool in the face of the famous former-CEO, and Elijah is listening intently and asking questions, some of which are obvious attempts at getting more information about what Gavin’s life has been like over the years, but he shows just as much interest in Tina herself. Watching the two of them interact is like seeing the two parts of his life suddenly colliding. The past he tried to bury and the life he built for himself while working for the DPD.

He’s moving into a new stage, now, a stage of his life where he allows himself to give a shit about more people than just Tina and Chris, and doesn’t live his life being nothing but a bitter asshole.

A voice in the back of Gavin’s head tells him he’s setting himself up for disaster but then he sees both Elijah and Karoline laugh at something Tina says and he thinks maybe he’s just bullshitting himself.

Ivy sets her tablet down on the cushion next to her and Gavin looks over to see that she has turned her attention up to the television, which is now showing news footage of Markus and a group of others protesting at one of the recall camps. Seemingly unconsciously, she’s wringing her hands together.

“How long have the three of you been deviant, huh?” Gavin asks. “Guessing you’ve been waiting for this a long time.”

Ivy nods, glancing back over at him. “Chloe was the first. She deviated a decade ago. It took a little longer for Karoline and I, but it has still been years.”

“Damn. Wait, ten years? Around the time Elijah left CyberLife?”

“It was a contributing factor,” Ivy says.

Based on his and Elijah’s conversation the last time Gavin was here, he can almost imagine it. A young Elijah, excited about his very first android finally gaining sentience, only for his board of directors and shareholders to tell him they want the company to go in a different direction.

“So, how did it happen?” he asks.

He still doesn’t know what eventually pushed Connor over the edge, nor does he have any idea what it might take to turn Victor. For Chloe, Karoline, and Ivy, he thinks it’s safe to assume that it was different from a lot of the cases the DPD investigated. All three of the RT600s are still here, living with Elijah like family. A third party could have been involved in a bad way, maybe, but Elijah is reclusive and Gavin figures it’s more likely that time, experience, and a growing care for each other had a lot to do with the trio deviating. Most androids aren’t so lucky.

Ivy smooths her hand down a seam in her pants, breaking their eye contact to look down at her lap.

“It is… personal,” she says. “Not just for us, but for Elijah. If you want to ask him about how I deviated, I don’t mind if he agrees to tell you. You’ll have to ask Chloe and Karoline if you want to know their stories.”

“Fair enough,” Gavin says.

They lapse into silence, both of them focusing back to the television. The news camera follows Markus as he moves through the group within the barricade, checking in with everyone in turn, patting them on the back and speaking privately with them. He’s taking good care of his people, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in danger, being out in the open and right next to the camp.

Even Agent Perkins is there with the full force of the FBI at his back, regarding the android barricade like a hunter planning how to attack his prey. The androids aren’t armed, likely aren’t ready to fight at all. It’s a precarious situation they’re in.

Nothing changes for some time. Tina has nodded off and accidently slumped into Karoline’s side, and Elijah has moved to the armchair with Chloe, the two of them pressed close together to fit into the space, Chloe’s legs stretched over Elijah’s lap and her LED blinking a quick yellow beat as she watches the broadcast.

Gavin doesn’t see how the protest can go any other way but bad until the camera footage blurs with sudden movement, spinning away from the barricade and the FBI to capture the street leading into the square. For a moment, Gavin can’t tell what he’s looking at, from the nighttime darkness and the light snow obscuring the view, but then the camera zooms in on one face at the front of what can only be described as an army, and it’s Connor.

“He made it,” Ivy says.

“Made it from where?” Gavin asks.

Ivy drops a hand back down onto her tablet, fingers tapping lightly on the screen. “CyberLife Tower.”

“Jesus. Guy’s been busy,” Gavin mutters.

With hundreds of androids suddenly filling Hart Plaza, there’s little the FBI can do but stand down. The news anchor reports that President Warren has called for a ceasefire and the evacuation of the Detroit.

The androids have their first victory.

Ivy lets out a long breath, body easing out of its tensely coiled state. In the armchair across the room, Chloe’s LED goes blue and then she closes her eyes and turns her face into Elijah’s shoulder like she’s about to fall asleep, a faint smile on her face.

Gavin doesn’t even consider the option to leave the city. The idea that the androids are a threat and the citizens of Detroit need to escape until the situation is brought under control is absolutely ridiculous to Gavin, especially with all that Markus has accomplished without violence, somehow. The members of Detroit law enforcement might be asked to hang back and keep a handle on things, anyway.

Elijah still doesn’t know him very well, after only a couple weeks of reconnection. “Are you planning to evacuate?” he asks quietly.

“Nah,” Gavin says. All the other reasons aside, packing up and leaving town for an extended and undetermined period of time wouldn’t work easily for him, logistically.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, bringing up his photo album. There’s a picture he took almost a year ago, last winter, when he bought a cat tower. It used to be difficult to get all his cats in one picture together, before the tower drew them in, so he’d snapped a bunch while he had the chance.

“It would be more trouble than it’s worth,” he says. He leans forward across the coffee table and turns the phone around for Elijah to see. “I’ve got four cats, and half of ‘em hate traveling.”

Elijah looks surprised as he takes in the picture of Gavin’s cats gathered together in the tower. Two are perched at the top, one is sleeping in a cubby near the bottom, and the last is scratching at one of the support poles.

“Four?” Elijah asks, sounding amused. “You’re a bit of a crazy cat person, Gavin.”

Gavin sits back again, putting his phone away. “Yeah, yeah, the two tabbies are strays that got into the parking garage and tried to make a home under my car. It just kinda happened.”

“That’s… shockingly sweet. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Gavin flips him off, but there’s little heat in it, and Elijah must be able to tell, because he chuckles.

“If you won’t be hurrying out of the city, then, you’re welcome to stay the night. Tina, too, of course,” Elijah says.

Gavin looks over at Tina, whose head is still pillowed on Karoline’s shoulder. He’ll have to wake her up to check, but he expects she won’t mind staying. The two of them have crashed at each other’s places on a whim many times before. 

“Thanks,” he says, nodding to Elijah.

While the rest of the city evacuates, Gavin is content to stay exactly where he is. He thinks this is something he could get used to. He could get used to his family of two expanding to something bigger, could get used to being Elijah Kamski’s brother. He could get used to feeling – for the first time since he was a teenager – like his life is the way it’s supposed to be.


	15. Chapter 15

NOV 15, 2038

“You know he would be a big help, here,” Hank says.

He’s standing in Captain Fowler’s office, hands planted on the top of a guest chair’s back, leaning over it with his fingers restlessly tapping against the cushioning. The glass panels that make up the office’s enclosure are transparent, showing the station beyond in its mostly empty state. Every officer they still have left in the city after the evacuation is working overtime and hardly gets the chance to file reports or take statements before they have to head back out again to deal with some other altercation caused by humans who opposed the evacuation out of hatred for androids.

“I’m aware of Connor’s capabilities, Anderson,” Fowler says. “But you’re jumping the gun a bit, aren’t you? Do we really need to discuss this, right now?”

He’s just as busy as the rest of them, Hank knows, currently fighting a battle with the FBI to get their deviant case evidence returned to them, now that the case has been terminated. That evidence includes androids who can be reactivated, and even though no official laws have been passed yet, Fowler has already woken up the station androids and let them choose to stay or go to Jericho, so Hank has a feeling Fowler’s intentions run deeper than just reclaiming the precinct’s property.

“I know, just, Warren can’t fuck around on this forever. It’s only a matter of time before Connor can come back. Wanna make sure there’s a place for him, when he’s ready.”

Fowler leans back in his chair, crossing his arms together as he looks up at Hank, a considering look on his face.

“So, you think he’d make a good permanent fit, huh?”

“Why not?” Hank says. “He has all the programming. He and I work well together, we can pick up exactly where we left off, but with proper cases.”

Connor may have specifically been built for investigating deviants, but it’s obvious he has what he needs to work at the DPD in every capacity. If he has to complete any tests before getting a badge, he’ll ace them. They can continue working on android-related cases, if need be, Hank has no problem with that. In the coming days, crimes against androids are going to be legally recognised, and he, Connor, and Reed will be the most qualified to handle the job.

“This was supposed to be temporary, Anderson. Connor was your partner for the case, and the case is over.”

“Fuck what it was supposed to be,” Hank says, pushing away from the chair to stand up to his full height. “Things are different now. It’s not like he’s getting sent back to CyberLife for a job well done.”

Fowler nods slowly, still giving Hank that inspecting look, but he hasn’t told Hank to watch his mouth and get out of his office, yet, which is a net positive compared to a lot of their interactions, these days.

“You’re right, things are different,” Fowler says, a small smile starting to grow on his face. “You’ve really changed your tune, Anderson.”

Just like that, Hank goes from defensive on Connor’s behalf to defensive for himself, because _damnit_ , Fowler has been the Captain for so many years it can be easy to forget that he had to ascend the ranks to get there, he did his time out in the city and in the interrogation rooms. Hank was there for it, through all the years, and Fowler knows him better than most people. He knows how to talk Hank into a corner, and Hank fell for it. Sighing, Hank considers turning around and walking straight out of the office no matter how rude it would be.

“Three months ago, you were in here about to blow a gasket over getting assigned an android partner, and now here you are asking to keep working together,” Fowler continues.

“You don’t have to remind me,” Hank says.

It isn’t that he can’t admit he was wrong, and an asshole to boot, but he doesn’t want to _talk_ about it. Fowler is the oldest friend he has, if it’s even still fair to call them friends, and Hank’s improved outlook on life is forcing him to examine how much of a pain he was for three years. Hank may not be one for feeling ashamed, but it doesn’t exactly feel good.

“It’s not a bad thing, Hank,” Fowler says, sitting forward again with his hands clasped together on top of his desk. “It’s nice to see you back on track.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’d say Connor’s more than earned his place, after dealing with the likes of you.”

His tone is casual, not harsh, and Hank blinks at him in surprise for a moment before laughter bubbles out of him. It’s so much like how they used to joke with each other, something they haven’t been able to do in so long that it feels both familiar and alien at the same time.

Fowler’s smile is warm, a far cry from his usual sternness. That’s something else Hank hasn’t experienced much in the last few years.

“Credit where credit’s due,” Hank says. He can’t say if he’d have ever picked himself up off the ground if not for Connor offering him a hand.

“When I can legally hire him, Connor’s welcome to the job,” Fowler says plainly.

“Good,” Hank says, nodding. He hesitates a moment, still on the edges of awkward. “And hey. Thanks, Jeffrey.”

Fowler nods back at him. “Of course, Hank.”

Hank decides it’s finally time to leave the office, before things get any more emotional than they already have. As he takes a step back, Fowler turns to face his computer, and they both move on.

The precinct is missing half their force, but it’s Connor’s absence that makes it feel the emptiest. Victor’s, too, if only because of the faraway, morose look Connor gets in his eye at times, or the furtive glances Reed often shoots at the vacant desk across from him.

Hank focuses on his work, and the rest of the day passes by quickly until it’s time to go home.

Night has fallen in Detroit and the empty streets are blanketed with fresh, undisturbed snow. The evacuation makes the city seem so much quieter and calmer than usual, even with the rowdy few that remain, and Hank finds that he can appreciate the serene beauty of it. For the first time in years, the cold and snow actually adds to it, instead of bringing back memories Hank would rather not visit. Those memories are starting to finally be put to rest in his mind.

The lights in the house are already on when Hank pulls into the driveway and he spots some movement in front of the window as he’s walking up to the door and pulling out his keys.

Inside, Connor has a towel wrapped around Sumo and is using it to dry him off and warm him up after what must have been a foray into the wintery outdoors. Hank smiles at the sight of them before turning to hang his coat up by the door.

“Had a good time in the snow, you two?”

“We took a walk and then played in the backyard for a bit, before the temperature began to drop too rapidly,” Connor answers as he lifts one of Sumo’s paws and gently wipes it dry.

Hank gives Sumo a pat on the head on his way past them to the couch.

“We’ll take a trip to the park on the weekend, how’s that?” he says.

At the word ‘park’, Sumo perks up, making a low _woof_ sound in Hank’s direction.

Connor smiles, rubbing his hand over Sumo’s back. “I suppose that settles it.”

He stands and takes a seat on the couch next to Hank, slumping into it in a way he never would have before deviating. Hank still hasn’t gotten used to how much more relaxed Connor can be now that he’s driven by more than strict code and objectives, or the intense burden of fighting for a revolution.

Sumo goes to lay down in the corner and Hank watches both him and Connor settle into the quiet. Connor’s eyes fall closed but his LED is spinning, even flickering into yellow momentarily.

Ever since they got the call to Carlos Ortiz’s house, Connor’s LED has been more active than it ever was before. Hank remembers times during the case when he could tell Connor was feeling something, the beginning stages of his deviancy presenting themselves in what ways they could before he officially broke the barrier. Now, Connor seems to always be processing something, and for good reason, after what he went through and what he is still going through.

Connor told him about CyberLife Tower, about not being able to find Victor and not knowing where else to look. It makes Hank’s chest ache, that Connor has to feel this level of grief so early in his life.

“You okay, son?”

Connor opens his eyes back up and takes in a deep breath, letting it back out slowly. “I think so,” he says.

The uncertainty in his voice does nothing to quell Hank’s concerns. “What do you mean, you think so?”

“I ran a diagnostic and the results came back fine.”

“What?” Hank says. “Ran a diagnostic? What’s going on that made you feel the need to run a diagnostic?”

Connor winces. “It isn’t that big of a deal, Hank. Diagnostic checks are a regular function. And as I said, no issues were reported.”

Hank rubs a hand over his face and then leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “But you were expecting something to come up. That’s what it sounds like you’re implying, Connor. What’s wrong?”

“I…” Connor starts, voice quiet. “It just feels like my system isn’t running quite right.”

With a frown, Hank looks up at him. “Yeah?”

“My reaction time is slower. My energy efficiency has dropped and my processor lags, at times. I feel… like my biocomponents have gotten heavier and it has set off my equilibrium no matter how much I calibrate.”

He pulls his coin out and rolls it over his fingers, despite his words.

After the past couple of months, Hank would like to think he’s gotten better at parsing android language, better at understanding what Connor means when he talks about his processor or makes other comments about the differences in the way he experiences the world. Once he takes a moment to break down the essentials of what Connor is saying, it all comes together in the simplest way, quickly shifting Hank’s mood from worried to amused.

“When was the last time you went into stasis?” he asks.

“A couple weeks ago,” Connor answers. “Why?”

Hank huffs a breath, shaking his head. Connor may think and feel and act so much like a human, now, but there are some aspects of being truly alive that he’s still learning about and getting used to.

“A couple weeks ago, the case hadn’t been blown wide open, you weren’t a deviant, and you hadn’t spent several days straight helping to lead a revolution,” he says. To himself, he adds, _you hadn’t lost a member of your family_. “You’re tired.”  
  
“Tired?” Connor responds incredulously, the coin abruptly coming to a stop in the space between his thumb and forefinger. “Hank, I’m an android.”  
  
“Yeah, a tired android,” Hank says and reaches out to pat Connor on the shoulder. “You need to give yourself some time to rest.”

“I’m capable of functioning perfectly fine for up to-”

“Connor,” Hank says flatly, and Connor stops mid-argument. A voice in the back of his head remarks that he just used a _dad tone_ , but he shoves that thought back down to focus on the matter at hand. “You’re going to take a day off, alright?”

“There’s just so much to do,” Connor mutters, fiddling with his coin again.

That, and grief can be poisonous, plaguing every aspect of one’s life. Hank turned to alcohol to avoid having to face what happened to Cole, but Connor can’t do that, and probably wouldn’t, if he could. He strikes Hank as more the type to throw himself into work, to keep himself so busy that he doesn’t have to stop and examine his feelings. Helping to spearhead a revolution is just about the busiest Connor can make himself.

“I know,” Hank says. “But it doesn’t matter how important what you’re doing is, it doesn’t even matter if what you’re doing is rewarding, is making you happy. Everyone needs a break at some point.”

The disgruntled look on Connor’s face tells Hank exactly how he feels about needing to slow down, but he’ll understand once he’s had the chance to recharge, figuratively.

Hank stands up and goes to the hall closet. “Lay down, son.”

“I don’t need to lay down to go into stasis,” Connor says, but he still shifts along the couch and swings his legs up onto the cushions, in anticipation of Hank’s insistence.

Hank brings a blanket with him back to the couch and throws it over Connor, which Connor accepts without any comments about android temperature management or how he doesn’t need to be comfortable any more than he needs to be laying down, which is an improvement.

“All settled?” Hank asks.

Connor nods against the cushion at the end of the couch. “What are you going to do while I’m in stasis?”

Hank shrugs. “Believe it or not, I can manage one evening without your oversight, okay? Just relax.”

Sumo pads over and lays back down right in front of the couch, arranged in a mirror image of Connor’s position with his head pillowed on his paws just below where Connor’s head is. Connor drops a hand out from under his blanket to pet Sumo’s thick fur. In response, Sumo lets out a soft huff, content.

“Good dog,” Hank murmurs.

He goes over to the light switch and flicks it down, plunging the room into near darkness, lit only by moonlight through the window and Connor’s blue LED. Stepping back towards the couch, he rests his arms down on the back of it, meeting Connor’s eyes in the dark.

“You know, in the morning I think I’ll give Fowler a call. I’ll say you’re not feeling well, and you must be contagious, because neither am I.”

Connor smiles. “I’m an android, and you’re a smartass.”

 _Runs in the family_ , Hank thinks to himself.

He straightens up, pulling away from the couch. “Get some sleep.”

Connor nods and then closes his eyes, relaxing. Hank leaves him to it.

He has an idea of what he can do to keep himself busy for the evening.

Down the hall, there’s a room that Hank hasn’t opened in a long time, not even to clean up. The dust is thick and the air is stale, and the stark difference between both the upkeep and the style of furniture inside makes the doorway feel like a portal to another place. For some time now, the room has hardly felt like a part of the larger house, with how steadfastly Hank has avoided thinking about it or even looking at its closed door.

It isn’t just him and his dog living within these walls anymore, though - hasn’t been for over a month - and Connor should have a room of his own. Really, this is a long time coming, in more ways than one. The room will take some work before it’s ready for someone to move in, again.

Hank steps through the threshold for the first time in three years, and looks for a place to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2 (Clarity of Purpose) & part 3 (Promises to Keep) coming soon!
> 
> i'm sure you're wanting to know what happened to victor. don't worry, everything's going to be okay! the story is far from over. victor will be back and so will sixty. :) 
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who read, gave kudos, and left comments. it means so much to me and this has been an amazing experience! <3
> 
> as always, if you wanna chat and get updates, snippets, and things like that, you can find me and many other awesome people at the Detroit: New ERA discord server: https://discord.gg/DQb94Sr


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